Intro
A short update on our offerings, and a little help to make your coffee more delicious.
Update on Secret Coffee
Our first “secret” coffee offering was issued last month. We had a great response. Furthermore we will be offering the remainder of the coffee once again in fresh roasted in June. Make sure you are on the list by checking your preferences on the newsletter mail list, if you are not already signed up then do so here…. Remember only those on the list can order these coffees. We are on the hunt to find another…
Tweaking your water for Coffee
We have been reading about, and playing with, water for almost two years. We have been trying to come up with something simple that anyone who loves coffee can do. You can read a full post on water for coffee on our website (Tweaking water for coffee with Mg), and the logic behind the recipe, below:
Water filtering
The standard off the shelf water filters like the Brita, remove most of the chemicals we do not want in water for our coffee: Cl, Fl, Hg, Cu, Cd and Zn.
Assuming you have some sort of water filtration, or perhaps you want to use spring water, or bottled water that is low in Mg, and has a pH around 7.
So, create at least 500ml of that water to use in the next step.
Creating a Mg Essence
The original formula on creating an Mg Essence is based on the formula in the ‘Water for Coffee’ book and the interpretation of it on the BH water recipe post. The idea here is to create a very diluted form of Mg so that we can add it to our brew water.
Ingredients:
- 5g or Epsom salts
- 500g filtered / spring water
Instructions:
Measure out 5g (about a level teaspoon, but better to measure) of Epsom Salts add to a bottle with filtered water of 500g (use an old 500ml bottle). Shake well.
Making brew water
Now that you have your filtered water and your Mg Essence, you are ready.
We have tried this recipe on Newlands spring water, filtered tap water and a few of the bottled waters with pH around 7.
Method:
- In a 1.5-litre (large water bottle – typical kettle or automatic machine tank) with your selected water add 5g of the Mg Essence to start (around 1 teaspoon).
- Taste the coffee. Does it taste more “juicy” or complex?
- If you want to try make it a little more interesting add another 1g of the Mg Essence.
- Repeat adding 1g of essence, until the coffee Is tasting burnt or nasty, you have added enough, go back one 1mg.
That’s it.
Just a note too much Mg can cause an upset stomach (which will return to normal after a visit to Percy), so start small.
This approach ensures there is enough Mg in the water to let flavoursome compounds in the coffee play nice in the final brew. While this probably gives us the most dramatic effect of all the tweaks you can do, there are further tweaks we will examine in additional posts to come, where we will look at HCO3 and pH.
New Coffees
We will be releasing our new Kenyan coffee in the next week or two. We loved this coffee on the cupping table (the best of 8 we tried) and we will be ironing out the final roast profile this week and post its availability on the various social media profiles, but it should be available from first week June.
A new coffee we have already made available is the new Nicaraguan – Divine Providencia – read more about it on the website here…
Prismo
We got a Prismo as part of a kickstarter campaign, and Mzukisi fell in love with this adapter for the AeroPress. We now have it in stock. If you want to get an espresso-like brew from your AeroPress then this is the one accessory we think you should try. Read more here….
New Juras
There are two new Jura Machines in the line-up. The one we think is for those put beauty before brew is the S8. Essentially a E8 with the emperor’s new clothes, being a touch screen, read more here….
The other model we are actually quite impressed with is the X8. This machine finally sees the end of the dinosaur of the Jura range: the XS9. The first time in a while that a reasonably priced machine can do two of any coffees (milk based or not) at the same time. And it looks good to boot. Read more here….
GDPR
We feel strongly that your data is yours only. We have limited our postings on the various media sites that have been under scrutiny for not making this a priority. With the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming in to effect, we feel this is a move in the correct direction.
And this also applies to us. We have never forced anyone on to our mailing list or have made available anyone’s data without their consent or within the standard features of the software we use. If you feel we have broken this promise, or you no longer want to be part of the newsletter then please either unsubscribe under your preferences or notify us that you would prefer any data we have of yours to be deleted.
