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March
28,2011

Tim Horton’s and McDonald’s Coffee

Author | Marc Wortman

Question: “I want to know what you think about Tim Horton’s coffee and my husband wants to know what you think about McDonald’s coffee???” - Diane Maillet


Answer: Wow, I want to know if either of you have ever had a GOOD coffee in your life :) .

I’m just kidding, I’ve been on the run many times before and in desperate need of a coffee.  I recently wrote about it where for all the bashing Starbucks takes, I was happy to have stopped for a coffee from their drive-thru one night.
Read: I still like Starbucks

When you don’t have the luxury of making good coffee at home, you’re forced to get it on the run.  Here’s what I think of Tim Horton’s and McDonald’s coffee.

I’ll start with Tim Horton’s.  I love their practice of not letting any coffee sit on heat for more than 20 minutes after it’s been brewed.  That means it’s been freshly-brewed and not burnt.  Burnt coffee is bad coffee, and I like that it gets dumped rather than poured into a thermal pump dispenser which is another way I find freshness gets sucked out of good coffee.

So it’s freshly-brewed, but is it freshly-ground?  Coffee is perishable and ground coffee expires at a faster rate than whole bean coffee.
Read: The Golden Rules of Fresh Coffee

You want to brew coffee as quickly as you can after it’s been ground, but Tim Horton’s coffee is delivered to its individual outlets PRE-GROUND.  So it’s not burnt, but it’s not as fresh as it could be.  If Tim Horton’s was obsessed with fresh coffee like you and I are, then they would grind the coffee on-site before it’s brewed.  But, this would take longer and in the trade-off between fresh coffee and your wait time, Tim Horton’s goes with quick service.
Read: Where does Tim Horton’s coffee come from?

Like most Tim Horton’s customers, I used to drink it with two creams and two sugars.  This is a time-honored Canadian tradition, and likely the reason so many people love the coffee, not for the blend of beans but for the 18% coffee cream they use.  If you’ve ever tried to make your own “double double” from a black Tim Horton’s coffee, you’ve found that it takes more than two creams to do so (?).

Since I drink my coffee black, I’m finally tasting Tim Horton’s coffee for what it is, and the best way I can describe it is…strange.  I don’t find it as bland as some, but I’m convinced the beans are blended intentionally so that it tastes best as a “double double”, the very way most customers order it.  As a quality cup of coffee, it is somewhere between 6-7 out of 10 for me.

I don’t think even just a few years ago that I would have imagined myself saying that McDonald’s was serving a quality coffee.  I assumed when the Higgins and Burke experiment failed that McDonald’s would stop trying.  The story is that in an effort to revamp their fledgling coffee business, McDonald’s introduced an “established” brand in H&B to get people talking.  Whether it was McDonald’s bringing down the value of H&B brand, or the fact that good coffee is still bad if it isn’t prepared right, the experiment was ended.

With their eyes set on being a more reasonably priced and less “snooty” alternative to Starbucks, McDonald’s rolled out McCafe.  It is meant to be less dark-roasted than most Starbucks coffees to appeal to a wider audience without compromising quality.  It is not bitter, it tastes very fresh whenever I’ve had it, and it has a good consistency (body) compared to the “coffee flavored hot water beverage” they used to sell many years ago.

I believe many people are enjoying the new McDonald’s coffee, since the McCafe rollout continues and Burger King responded by replacing their own “signature” coffee with Starbucks-owned Seattle’s Best Coffee.

My advice: If you want a special coffee drink that a trained barista should prepare, go to Starbucks.  If you want variety between a “medium” and “bold” coffee, go to Starbucks.  If you want a fresh quality coffee poured from a pot for less money than Starbucks, go to (I can’t believe I’m about to say it) McDonald’s!  And if you’re Canadian and you need a coffee very, very quickly, there’s probably a Tim Horton’s within a city block of you and it’s still better than the terrible coffee that McDonald’s sold us for many years.

Categorized In | Buying Coffee

March
26,2011

Second Cup, what does “fairly traded” mean?!

Author | Marc Wortman

Something interesting happened this week.  I was at an outlet for Second Cup Coffee and I noticed a sign hanging from the ceiling that read: “24 fairly traded coffees available every day”.  I almost missed it, there wasn’t any other fanfare around this fairly traded business.

For those of you that haven’t heard of Second Cup, they are a Canadian chain of specialty coffee stores.  They’ve been around almost 40 years and have over 300 locations across Canada.  Where Starbucks is in every country, their biggest competition in Canada is arguably Second Cup, at least in the realm of specialty coffee (Tim Horton’s doesn’t serve specialty coffee).

In 2000, Seattle college students organized a threatened boycott of Starbucks if they didn’t start sourcing Fair Trade certified coffee.  The corporate giant cracked under the pressure and began purchasing a tiny proportion of their coffee through the Fair Trade channel.  Still a tiny proportion today, they are nonetheless the single largest buyer of Fair Trade coffee in the world.  The irony is that a tiny proportion of their size is still huge in the grand scheme, but because it is tiny, it demonstrates the company’s actual commitment to the cause.

To take part in “fairly traded” coffee on their own terms, Starbucks worked with a group named Conservation International to develop their own code of ethically-sourced coffee.  Given its size, Starbucks can now claim that they are a better “certifier” for the cause than the Fair Trade certifier itself.  Today, Starbucks continues to offer Fair Trade certified coffee at many locations and over their website.

When I saw the sign in Second Cup, it reminded me of Starbucks‘ reluctance to get into Fair Trade.  I decided to do some investigating.  Naturally I assumed that Second Cup‘s website would have the full low-down.  To my surprise, it references the “fairly traded” coffees but offers no information on what that means.  An invitation to “Click for Details” takes you to a short paragraph on their coffee that makes no reference to its sourcing.

Fortunately, their website includes a search function.  Unfortunately, it couldn’t find anything related to “fairly traded” or “fair trade” on the whole website.  This was surprising to me.  In this day and age, a company’s website is its complete brochure.  Why have a “fairly-traded” program and no supplemental information?  Shame on me for not asking the staff at Second Cup what “fairly traded” means and how it is different (better) than the Fair Trade certification program.

I started Googling for more information on the subject, and then asked myself why I was investing this much time looking for elusive answers to my questions.  I have a better idea until the answers make an effort to find me: continue buying from my local roaster of Fair Trade certified coffees, and stop for a cup at Second Cup when I happen to be passing one and feel like having a “fairly traded” coffee on the run.

Categorized In | Buying Coffee,Fair Trade and the Environment

March
20,2011

Pour-over Brewing Method – the Chemex

Author | Marc Wortman

The first time I ever heard of making coffee by “pour-over” was almost a whole year ago.  Click here to see the video I found back then of a tiny Japanese robot preparing coffee by this method.  I commented at the time that it seemed like a lot of work when I was getting coffee from my drip brewer just fine.

Late last year, I was asked for my thoughts comparing the pour-over technique to the French Press.  I came back to my opinion that the French Press is held in such high regard that there must be a reason why, whereas I wasn’t hearing as many advocates for the pour-over technique.

This month, I visited the Planet Bean roastery in Guelph Ontario and saw something for the first time.  All coffee served in their retail cafe was prepared by the barista using the pour-over method.  I asked Bill Barrett about this, and he gave his opinion that this was an ideal method to brew and get maximum flavor from coffee.

By coincidence, I was given another chance to answer this question when Dawn Foster e-mailed me and asked,

“Marc, what is your opinion of the Chemex coffee maker. A friend swears by it.”


What’s the difference?  Is it worth the bother?

Your drip-brewer at home heats the water and dispenses it over the filter of ground coffee.  That filter fills up with the heated water that extracts solids from the coffee that drips into the pot.  Grind some coffee, pour water in the machine, flip a switch, wait, enjoy.

By contrast, the pour-over method involves you slowly and gradually pouring the hot water in a thin continuous stream over several minutes rather than flooding the ground coffee at once.

To the left is the Chemex coffee maker.  In the home version of the pourover technique, this is the name I have heard the most often.  To brew coffee in this way, you would still use a paper filter in the cone opening seen on the left.  Once your water is boiled, you would let it cool slightly so that you are not pouring boiling water onto coffee (which spoils it).

What follows is the slow and deliberate process I shrugged at a year ago, of pouring the water onto the coffee in the filter.  This happens in three steps: pour once to saturate the ground coffee, pour a second time to build a volume of hot water in the filter to drip into the bottom chamber, and pour a third gradual time to use up the rest of the water.  In case it isn’t clear, I don’t own one but don’t worry, instructions come with the Chemex :) .


The Professional Way

Planet Bean prepares all of their retail coffee by the cup in this manner.  It has the definite appeal of quality that can’t be rushed in how it’s made.

The pour-over station is set up for each cup of coffee sold in the shop.

From the many varieties of coffee available that day, yours is organized in a single serving that is pulled from the shelf and brought to the pour-over station.

The coffee is emptied into the filter.

And the pour-over begins. It is the same process as I described with the Chemex above, with three separate pouring steps before your cup is ready and served to you.


The exciting part for me is that all of this is very new to me.  I can’t deny the East Timor coffee I had on-site at Planet Bean was awesome, but they have quality in every step so it’s difficult to say it was all about the pour-over technique specifically.

I’d love to hear from you if you have experienced the pour-over method – comment here or always feel free to send me an e-mail.  I’m very intrigued to learn more about the pour-over technique.

Categorized In | Brewing Coffee

March
16,2011

Roast Style and Flavor

Author | Marc Wortman

Hans Damgaard and I were exchanging e-mails about the best way to roast Guatemalan coffee.  I am only an amateur home roaster, leaving it to the experts of the world to roast my coffee to perfection.  Guatemalan coffee is my all-time favorite coffee and any time I’ve had it, it was roasted dark.  Also, any advice I’d ever seen on how to roast it agreed.

The discussion made me think about the different levels of roast style.  I love all coffee, but each source and condition of coffee bean has an optimal roast to take the most advantage of its unique flavor.  A Hawaiian coffee, for instance, is not at its best when roasted dark and a Guatemalan coffee is not at its best when roasted medium.  Your local roaster knows coffee, his equipment, and the process well enough to decide how that coffee is best roasted.

Check out the website’s Roast Style and Flavor page to learn more about the different levels of roast, what they do for the flavor of your coffee, and how there’s a right roast style for each bean.  The picture here is one I took from the Ueshida Coffee Company in Kona, Hawaii when I visited there last year.  The trained coffee roaster would never use a wall poster to gauge roast style, but along with our Roast section, it makes for a good primer.

I wrote recently about how I was trying to broaden my coffee choices to include more than just dark roasts all the time.

We as coffee drinkers don’t need to be as wise on it as the coffee roaster, that’s his craft.  But they do make it simpler for us to understand.  As an example, the Fire Roasted Coffee Company has a Roast Rating of one bean, two beans, or three beans printed on each bag to indicate whether it is medium-roasted, dark-roasted, or somewhere in-between.  It makes it simpler for me to make sure I’ve tried each one and enjoyed the flavor that each roast style has to offer.  And when I find one I like, it helps guide me to other coffees with similar flavor characteristics that I may enjoy just as much.

Categorized In | Buying Coffee

March
11,2011

Should a Ten Year Old Drink Coffee?

Author | Marc Wortman

Don’t blame me, I don’t ask the questions, I just answer them :) .

Recently over Twitter, I was asked in jest (I hope) by a ten-year old whether or not it was too early in his life to start drinking coffee.  At first, it just made me laugh.  Then, I realized that in answering the question there was a great opportunity to go back to basics on coffee consumption and caffeine.

I myself only started drinking coffee at around 16 years old, but what would happen if you started giving coffee to a ten-year old?  I’m no biologist, or really an “ologist” of any kind.  But we have enough common sense about caffeine and the rest of the information is out there.  Here’s what I learned.

Stunted Growth

This is a myth.  Drinking coffee at too young an age will not stunt that child’s growth as previously believed.  The effects of caffeine on the nervous system are the same for a child as they are for an adult, and will not interfere in the child’s physical development.

Hyperactivity

Caffeine is an ergogenic (that’s the biggest word I’ll use in this post, I promise).  That means it raises awareness and reduces the sensation of being tired.  For infrequent coffee drinkers, that could mean jitters or excitement, even giddiness.  In a ten-year old, that means hyperactivity.  Children are less likely than adults to try and control that newfound energy, leading to a loss of control.  Here, I think the real question is what has the ten-year old done in the past with similarly “artificial” energy from eating too much chocolate at once.  If he works it off by playing a sport, that’s a little more productive than if he marches around the house banging pots and pans together.

Withdrawal

Every artificially induced high has an inevitable low, and eventually the effects of the caffeine will wear off, leaving the ten-year old with a unique feeling: coming down.  Coming down isn’t just being exhausted, it’s being “artificially” exhausted.  In adults, symptoms include anxiety, confusion, irritability, and insomnia.  In a ten-year old with less experience in managing these kinds of feelings over his life, the symptoms will be more pronounced, albeit short-lived since caffeine is relatively mild in its effects, and a dependency hasn’t developed yet.

Dependency

Adults who drink coffee develop something called “tolerance adaptation“.  That means my system is so accustomed to drinking coffee that it produces chemicals and reactions on the basis of expecting it.  I can’t feel the effects of caffeine, only a lack of it (or to quote an old friend, “You don’t drink from the coffee pot, it drinks from you now.”).  If I had to endure withdrawal, my system would need to reorganize itself chemically and to stop expecting the regular doses of caffeine.  That process wouldn’t be quick, and would be horrible for the people around me.

The good news for the ten-year old is how much easier his system could shake off any short-term dependency versus the decades that my system has accepted it as much as any chemical that it produces naturally.  So can a ten-year old drink coffee?

In my mostly uneducated opinion, it should be considered a heavy-duty “chocolate” reward, something of similar effect (and similar in “coming down” when it wears off).  If a ten-year old liked the smell of coffee, he might also like an espresso-size serving of it.  Espresso is ironically not a bad choice, since it (contrary to popular belief) has less caffeine that regular coffee, but much flavor.  The ten-year old will not have enough of it to develop a dependency so the real task is managing him after the caffeine heightens his senses and gives him the perception of more energy.  Keep portions small and infrequent – it will keep the ten year old manageable.  Or, set a minimum age for his first coffee so he has something to look forward to.

I couldn't help myself - here is a picture I located from the same household in question, here drinking what appears to be a beer. Where are the parents?!

Categorized In | Coffee and You

March
10,2011

Profile: Planet Bean Coffee

Author | Marc Wortman

There was lots to draw me to Guelph Ontario’s Planet Bean Coffee.  It started when a good friend who manages a food services unit in Guelph told me about the fun he was having trialing different coffees.  He had to pick one coffee supplier, and Planet Bean won him over hands-down.  I wanted to get to know them better.  Before I had a chance to, another friend happened upon them and bought me two half-pounds of their Morning Glory and Freedom Fighter blends.  It was time to see it for myself.

I arranged to meet with Bill Barrett.  Bill has been in the Planet Bean family for almost 15 years.  We sat down for an hour over a cup of East Timor coffee, after which Bill treated me to a backstage tour of the roasting operation.  When I left that day, I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how I was going to condense everything I learned into one simple blog post.  So instead, you’re going to get several posts :) !  I don’t even regret it, Bill is a fascinating man with community at top of mind in all he does.  And when everybody you know in a city swears by a small business in that city, they must have the goods.

Quality and Responsibility

In 1997, Bill wanted to do something that nobody else in Guelph was doing.  There were three components to Planet Bean’s vision:

1) Fresh roasted coffee.  If it is roasted locally, then it’s fresh when local people buy it.  There weren’t plans to mass-roast and ship it, keeping supply local and freshness top of mind.

2) Organic.  Demonstrate responsibility for sustainable growing practices and for what we coffee lovers put in our system when we’re drinking it.

3) Fair-Traded.  Advocate a supply chain where coffee farmers in poverty-stricken countries get a minimum price, and developmental funding in their area.


One Year Later…

The restaurant portion of the business was closed to ensure proper focus on the coffee roasting.

The company has  become as important locally as a wholesale provider to other businesses as it is known for its retail locations and coffee by the pound.  In 1998, the company itself became certified as a  Fair Trade vendor, and vendor of Certified Organic product.

Planet Bean is owned and operated by the Sumac Community Worker Co-Operative, of which Bill is the current President.  In other words, the company is run by its employees who each have a stake in its quality and success.  Employees of long enough tenure are invited to join the co-op and became a part-owner of the company.

I don’t think a word came out more often in our discussion than “community”.  It dictates how Planet Bean does business.  From the concentration on the local market they serve to ensure a product as fresh as possible, to the worker co-op that owns and operates the company, to the accountability they show in their responsible and sustainable sourcing of coffee.

Click here to read about Bill’s recent trip to Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, to survey a farmer co-op in the area.  Planet Bean proves that there is no trade-off between quality and responsible practices – it is at the heart of what they do without trade-off.  Can you blame me for not being able to condense our one-hour conversation :) ?  I am excited to share more from the great discussion that day.

Categorized In | Buying Coffee,Fair Trade and the Environment

March
9,2011

Four Great Coffees

Author | Marc Wortman

Once you try great coffee, you’ll never settle for good coffee again.

If you’ve read my Tale of Too Many Coffees, you know I’m working through another great coffee overstock.  The good news is that I believe it’s under control and I will get through most of it before it begins to go stale and lose its great flavor.  While looking it all over, I realized that I had great coffees from three different parts of the world, each unique and each very tasty.

Central America: Costa Rica
From the Fire Roasted Coffee Company (FRCC) in London Ontario, their Fair Trade Certified Costa Rican blend coffee.  A mellow flavor but full bodied “with hints of wild berries and finishes with smokey-chocolate and spice”.

 

Africa: Kenyan Fair Trade and Kenyan Peaberry
Also from the FRCC in London, a half-pound of their Kenya Fair Trade Certified Coffee.  For many years, Kenya was my second favorite source for coffee after Guatemala.  I found it had a very distinct flavor which is common to eastern African countries but none are in as great a circulation as Kenya’s.  With ”a floral aroma, a hint of burnt-orange in the mouth, and a distinct wine-like finish”
While in Vancouver British Columbia, I was on the hunt for a good roaster in this coffee-crazy city.  Not only did I discover JJ Bean, but I discovered their current Special Reserve coffee is one I’d never tried before, a Kenyan Peaberry coffee.  Peaberry is a variant type of bean with its own flavor so if you like a coffee, you might also like its Peaberry sister.  Too lucky to be a coincidence, and this has been an awesome coffee – complex flavor and a great sip everytime.

South America: Peru Feminino
It’s actually a funny story.  I have this same coffee, roasted by two different roasters.  On a recent trip to FRCC, I was blown away to find out that they had successfully listed one of their coffees with the prestigious Coffee Review – check out their Coffee Review score of 88.  It was also the first I’d learned of this cause, the beans are purchased from women-owned and -managed small farms.  The beans are Fair Trade Certified and benefit women growers and their families in coffee-growing regions.  FRCC hit this one so perfectly that they were recognized for it.
Now here’s the funny part.  When a friend found out I’d be in the area, he purchased a pound of the same-sourced coffee, but roasted by Planet Bean Coffee (PBC).  With the recognition that PBC has as a roaster in the Guelph Ontario area, I know they will have done this one justice as well.

Four great coffees down to three and I can’t wait to try them all.  I’ve had FRCC’s Kenyan Fair Trade coffee before – and I bought it again, so that should be a good endorsement.  I’ve made a couple pots of the Kenyan Peaberry, and it’s as good as I’d hoped.  The Peruvian coffee from FRCC has been great and I’m looking forward to Planet Bean’s spin on the same bean.

Many different growing regions from around the world.  Many great and unique coffee flavors.

Categorized In | Buying Coffee

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