A Changing World
"The world is changed. ... I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost." With apologies to Tolkien, this is precisely the situation we find ourselves in today. I firmly believe that the economic and social costs of the pandemic will reverberate for the balance of my lifetime.
Many hospitality industry venues such as cafes, bars, restaurants and hotels are currently closed. A lot of them will never reopen. Right now this is shattering supply chains all the way from farm to table. Much of what we eat and drink relies on a continuity of steps from production to consumption, and the retailers at the end point are in lockdown.
The sheer volume of coffee consumed by Australian cafes and restaurants will probably take years to recover, which in turn affects roasters (still in business but hurting) and green coffee importers. Multiply this by the whole world and it starts to look a lot like the oil industry, with the people at the bottom (coffee farmers) suffering from surplus production and lowered prices.
The social effects may take a lot longer to sort themselves out, but I suspect we're going to come out of this in a much more "back to basics" inclined world. In a time of high unemployment and reduced incomes it might be a long while before the $4.50 takeaway Café Latte makes a comeback.
I've certainly picked up a bunch of new customers, many of them new to brewing at home. It looks like my retirement will be somewhat delayed, and my post-retirement celebratory trip is cancelled until further notice. Fortunately my son Marc and his partner have taken over much of the heavy lifting physical portions of my job. What I will be doing as part of the "back to basics" thing is writing a set of "how to brew" guides, starting with plunger brewing.
For those of you who have forgotten, my instructions are:
If possible, use freshly roasted and ground coffee. Grind should be coarser than for filter but not as coarse as for percolator.
Use 10 grams of coffee per 180ml of water. Add the correct amount of coffee to your plunger.
Boil your water. Allow to stand 30 seconds then pour carefully over the coffee. If your coffee is fresh it should bubble and foam up, this is called the Bloom. Depending on the size of your plunger, allow 1-3cm at the top of the plunger so the bloom doesn't overflow during the next step.
Then take a suitable spoon (wooden if you've got a glass jug) and stir for 90 seconds, making sure you submerge all the coffee including the bloom. v) Insert the filter, slide the lid down the shaft, then push the filter about 2cm under the surface.
Wait 30 seconds, then plunge all the way with a slow, steady pressure. If your grind is a bit too fine and you encounter resistance, pull the plunger up 2cm, wait a second, then press down again. Serve immediately.
This month’s special is:
$52 Per Kilogram
Strong
A complex tropical fruit front palate with a smooth sweet mid palate and a long cedar wood smoke & praline finish
And yes, the tasting notes come from Marc, who is more used to tasting whisky than coffee!
The new website should be fully operational sometime this month. There may be a 24 hour period when it's down as we move the domain, but that should be all.
Until July,
Alan
