21st Street Coffee and Tea

Long time between posts- holidays have been good… and busy!

Anyway, I found a really neat Clover article on CHOW.com today. Anyone that’s visited our Strip District shop has probably seen the Clover in action, but this writeup does as good a job I’ve seen explaining the brewing process.  Definitely check it out.

My quick description of the Clover brewing process typically begins with- have you ever had a French Press? (customer says yes) Ok, so basically we’re going to use a finer grind, higher dose, accurately control time and temperature, and “plunge” the coffee from the bottom to create a vaccum and wring as much coffee goodness as possible from the “cake”- in about a minute. This is not the Nespresso you got Mom for Christmas.

Puzzled look? French huh? Well, then you get the long description, but the essence of “press pot” brewing is that the coffee and water are in contact with one another for the entire brewing cycle (total immersion brewing), much like how you would steep a tea. When the coffee has finished brewing, you have to get all the grounds out of the solution, so you push a filter, piston-style, through the coffee/water “soup” to strain the coffee/push the grounds to the bottom of the pot. Then you can pour your wonderful coffee into your favorite mug.

The issue for most folks (what I hear from customers) with the press is that it is “difficult to clean”. After you’ve finished your coffee you have a pot with a pile of soggy coffee grounds in the bottom. You also have a filter screen that requires cleaning. For those that don’t mind the extra cleaning, what prevents them from achieving a great cup from a press pot is lack of control over their coffee variables. It’s like a science experiment. These variables include- how much coffee you use (the dose), the size of the coffee particles (grind), coffee to water ratio, water temperature, brewing time, do I stir it, what do I do with the coffee after brewing to store it… etc.

Anyway this is where the Clover comes into play. The Clover very accurately controls three key variables- TIME, TEMPERATURE, and VOLUME (of water). We can fine tune, to the second, degree, and ounce the length of time the water and coffee will remain in contact with one another, the temperature of that water, and how much water is used. Two other key variables are controlled by the barista- GRIND and DOSE. We weigh out the coffee for each cup on a digital gram scale- accurate to 0.1 grams (each coffee bean weighs around that much) to get the correct dose. We then select the correct grind for that coffee on our coffee grinder, and grind up the coffee seconds before brewing.  Oh, and the coffee we use is FRESH- we only use coffee within about a week of the roast date (none of this “best before 8/08 stuff” I saw at the grocery store today).  Did I mention that we use great direct trade coffee from Intelligentsia?

The fact that the Clover is fast (most coffees are brewed in under 1 minute) and easy to clean (people like to watch the squeegie) makes it feasible for a commercial environment like ours. We can accurately brew excellent coffee quickly- repeatably, assuming you care about the coffee and know how to control the variables. The Clover is a great tool- one that provides the barista the controls to fine tune each and every cup. Use poor quality (or stale) coffee, or dial it in improperly, and it can make bad coffee as well. The same could be said of any espresso bar running top equipment but pumping out sour or bitter espresso or scalded milk drinks.  We like what Clover’s been doing for our coffee.

Read the entire CHOW article here.