Some fundamentals:
Coffee:
- Be sure you are buying good quality beans.
- Coffee should be ethically sourced (workers need a viable living) and carefully graded (to remove damaged and inferior beans).
- Check whether your beans are a blend from various farms or single sourced - this will define the flavour profile of your coffee. Generally, Arabica beans are high altitude grown and will have a finer and more complex flavour than lower altitude robusta beans.
- Low priced coffee is likely a blend of inferior beans, lengthily stored beans or a combination of both. And so those compounds and oils that make for a good healthy cup of coffee might not be there.
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Be sure you are buying fresh coffee beans.
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Green beans need to be properly washed and dried at the farm to protect them from mold. Pre-roasted green beans will store much longer than roasted beans but not indefinitely (coffee will store 12 months but will gradually lose glucose and fructose in the process). Long or improper storage can expose coffee beans to adverse humidity and temperature levels which can encourage mold. Properly graded green beans, stored and distributed properly will help ensure you experience a fresh healthy cup.
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Roasted beans are best consumed within a few weeks but they can be stored longer. Coffee in a bag with a CO2 valve will stay fresh longer. You can now buy special coffee containers that also manage CO2 levels. Coffee aficionados now speak of freezing fine coffees like wine connoisseurs. Coffee can be vacuum bagged and frozen but be sure there is no contact with moisture. Freezing aside, it is best to buy fresh coffee often and store just long enough to maintain freshness.
Cacao:
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Criollo cacao is delicate and more subtle in flavour than forastero cacao - and yet more fragile to grow and scarcer. Forastero cacao can be considered the bulk crop of the cacao varieties. The flavour is chocolatey but lacking in subtlety compared to criollo. Criollo is cacao ‘native’ to central America and Mexico, having spread in these areas over thousands of years. Both the criollo and forastero varieties originate in the Amazon basin. However, with the help of trade, forastero has recently migrated throughout the tropics worldwide whereas criollo has largely remained somewhat “local” in Latin America and the Caribbean. Trinitario cacao originated in Trinidad when the criollo crop there was almost wiped out by a hurricane in the 18th century. A hybrid of local criollo and forastero varieties was introduced. Successful hybrids could be considered the present and future of cacao crops. In Mexico, farmers are using careful cultivation practices and plant genetics to maintain and expand production of their ancestral criollo trees.
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Raw vs fresh roasted cacao.
First thing is to be sure to buy cacao that supports a local farming community - either through fair or direct trade.
You won’t buy cacao in its raw form like you would buy an avocado. You can buy cacao that is first level processed - fermented and dried, or second level processed: fermented and lightly roasted. So coffee is washed dried and roasted; cacao is fermented naturally in its pulp and then exposed to air to finish fermentation, the beans are then dried and roasted. Cacao like coffee needs roasting for the flavour and the brew. The mixing of fresh roast coffee will give you the flavour compounds and health benefits unique to both.
- Cacao nibs are the segments of cacao beans that are lightly roasted and blending in our coffee. “Raw” advocates might argue that roasting destroys the healthy compounds in cacao. Recent studies show this isn’t true - there are still significant concentrations of healthy compounds in roast cacao. Furthermore, cacao is not always farm-washed like coffee. Roasting will kill any harmful bacteria that could be present in raw cacao. So be sure to buy fresh roasted cacao nibs for your coffee-cacao.
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