Coffee Superstition

There’s a lot of superstition or ‘folk knowledge’ in the coffee industry. Coffee is still a young science so this is somewhat expected, but doesn’t excuse it.

Originally published on Barista Hustle — a weekly email newsletter, blog, and Slack community for coffee professionals, hosted by Matt Perger.

If you’re truly aiming to produce the highest quality product, you cannot always believe what people tell you. The only way to know for certain is to test it yourself.

I definitely see the irony in this as a loud voice of coffee methodology. Even though I test things much more thoroughly than the average Barista, I heartily recommend testing my methods properly before relying on them for your business or place of work.

For the last few years I’ve been trying my best to re-think almost everything I’ve been taught about coffee. A startling amount of the time, I’ve found that the generally accepted ‘rules’ aren’t so accurate. Through Barista Hustle I’ve been trying to share and debunk as many of these myths as possible. Some were met with friction, others were welcomed.

Here’s a list of superstitious folk knowledge rubbish. Some of which were recently considered gospel by many (including myself).

Bi-modal grind distribution is crucial for espresso.

Tamp with 30 pounds of force (or whatever you were taught).

Keep pucks in the portafilters for temperature stability.

Engage the pump immediately after portafilter insertion or you’ll burn the coffee.

Spin the tamper to polish the grinds so the surface is smoother for extraction.

Tiger stripes in the crema is a sign of good extraction.

Fines are evil.

9 bars of pressure is optimum for all espresso.

Cold cups will “shock” the espresso.

You have to stop the shot before it blondes. (Or my favourite, pulling the cups out from beneath the stream before turning the pump off to avoid under-extraction)

Stirring a pour over instantly over-extracts it.

Don’t pour water near the edges of the brewer or it’ll go straight through the paper.

Don’t break the crema!

Spent espresso pucks have to be dry and firm.

Boiling water burns the coffee.

You have to season the espresso machine after cleaning it (with or without chemical).

Blends taste better than single origin (or vice versa).

Ripple/curved/c-curve tampers make better espresso (i.e. anything other than flat)

If you open the cafe door you have to change the grind setting.

When you read some of these you’re probably thinking to yourself “gosh, that’s so stupid. I can’t believe anyone ever thought was true. I’m so evolved”. Give yourself a brief pat on the back; we’ve come a fair way. But we’re not done yet. The purpose of this post isn’t to celebrate progress made so far, but to potentially jump start the progress yet to come.

I want to share some current dogmas for you to ponder. Some of these are already false in my eyes, but still hold fast for the majority.

Will you be laughing about these in a year or five? Why do you currently believe they’re true? Is it based on hard evidence, or did you hear it from a colleague at a latte art throw down a few years ago? Please have a good think about each one. Will they join the list above soon enough? Why not? Be brutal, and you might just leave this post hungry for answers!

Only use freshly ground coffee.

Only use freshly roasted coffee.

Don’t brew coffee that was roasted <1 day ago.

Espresso coffee should be aged at least ~5 days.

Large batch roasting can’t taste as good as small batch.

Only use green coffee within 12 months of harvest.

Ristrettos (shorter brew ratios) taste bad.

Espresso must be somewhere between 25 and 35 seconds long.

Super-automatics can’t make coffee as well as a Barista can.

Natural/dry processed coffees aren’t clean.

Robusta tastes bad.

Starbucks’ (et al) coffee tastes bad.

Light roasts are better for tasting the coffee’s true flavor.

Espresso brewing temperature must be stable within 0.1C.

Coffee should degas before brewing.

High altitude coffee tastes “better.”

Reminder: I don’t necessarily believe any of those are true or not. It’s just a list of currently prevalent dogma.

Can you think of any more that might not hold up to scrutiny? Post them below. Or better yet, go and run an experiment to prove/disprove it yourself!!

To progress!