Last week we had a workshop regarding water temperature.
Our aim was not to figure out exactly the best temperature to brew coffee, but to understand how temperature affects the taste of the coffee. According to my experiences every coffee needs a specific temperetaure (that can differ between different coffees) to be most enjoyable.
-We used a course grind that has been tested good, grounded on our ditting grinder.
-The brewing time was held at 4 minutes.
-The presspots were preheated before use
-We used Bodum Chambord 8 cup presspots
-We used our domincican rep, juncalito coffee, roasted 9days ago.
-We used 6 grams of coffee per dl.
-We brewed the coffee using Tim Wendelboes method
In the first run we had tree different presspots. In the first one we used boiling water, in the second we had 90 degrees Celsius, and in the third we had 80 degrees Celsius.
Just so the coffees would have the same tasting temperature we brewed the coffees with 2 min 30sec difference, starting with the hottest one. The tasting temperature was within 2 degrees, so it should not have affected the taste that much. There was four people that cupped, and by everyone the conclusion was:
-The coffee brewed with boiling water tasted ok, but it was a bit bitter, and lacked sweetness.
-The coffee brewed with 90 degrees Celsius tasted best, and had a very pleasant acidity and had the most aromas, and had the best mouthfeel as well.
-The coffee brewed with 80 degrees lacked acidity as well as the aromas. It was still quite sweet, but tasted more like bread.
The next round we narrowed the temperatures a bit. We had 3 different temperatures this time. The first was 95 degrees, the second 91 degrees, and the third was measured 86,8 degrees. We brewed the coffees with 1 min difference, starting with the hottest one
-The coffee brewed with 95 was better than with boiling water, but was still a bit bitter and lacked finesse.
-The coffee brewed with 91 tasted best in this round and showed a lot of fruitiness.
-The coffee brewed with 86,8 degrees was sweet, but lacked the acidity and fruitiness.
We can´t really conclude anything as to what is the best temperature to brew coffee with, but this can maybe work as a guideline when you try to find the optimal temperature for a specific coffee brewed in a presspot. What we can conclude is that water temperature makes a BIG difference!!
