Um, Yeah, But What Kind of Grinder Did They Use?
Please excuse us. We need to take issue with an article, "French roast brews, sip for sip" in today's Los Angeles Times.
Why were we reading the L.A. Times, you ask? We're secretly Angelino-philes (that's why we poke fun at them sometimes).
We happened upon the above-linked piece and, being your Trimethyldioxypurist, thought we should weigh in on the flawed methodology, the lack of transparency in tasting method, and, perhaps most of all, we wanted to take up for our friends at Graffeo, whose dark roast is described in the article as having "chocolate aromas and a soft finish," but being "rather flat."
Okay, Graffeo may have a Beverly Hills location, but that's a San Francisco company you're messing with, L.A. Times. We're calling bullcrap on this whole "review piece."
First of all, much like SFist Mary Ladd's excellent point about Bill Addison's over-taqueria-ing in the Chron a little while ago, you're not being fair to any of the sampled products by tasting 13 of them at once. This is hogwash. Coffee is complex, and those complexities are often subtle; would you lend any credibility to a similar article tasting 13 types of Zinfandel in one sitting? We don't think so.
Second beef: The article says the coffees were "all brewed identically in French presses." Any true coffeephile knows that flavor profiles of different beans/brands/blends are optimized differently, even if all purport to be "French Roast." An additional or reduced volume of ground coffee, a hotter or cooler brew temperature, more or less steep time, a slightly coarser or finer grind -- slight differences in any of these factors could highlight one or two of these 13 products and mask the finer qualities of many of the others. Would you prepare every type of heirloom tomato the same way? No! French Roast is just a roast; an important designation that, however, does not make it okay to prepare the same way across the board.
And, speaking of grinder: did the L.A. Times panel grind their own beans? If so, what kind of grinder? A good-quality burr grinder? Or some $10 propeller grinder? Did they perhaps buy the beans pre-ground (shudder)? And we've never been in an office that has the infrastructure to make a decent cup of coffee. Were they using tap water? Filtered? Did they boil it in a kettle or use some sort of "instant hot water" device? More details behind preparation are needed before we can give this study any credence, as it's hard enough to make a decent cup at home, let alone at the office.
Seriously, L.A. Times -- we used to work in a newsroom, and we have little confidence in most journalists' abilities to distinguish a good cup of coffee from bad (yours truly being a notable exception, naturally). Just having a couple food editors on your panel does nothing to change our minds in this regard -- after all, how often do you see a restaurant review talk about the end-of-the-meal cuppa joe? Almost never. "Food editor" does not necessarily a coffee critic make.
Finally, you dissed Graffeo. We aren't going to blindly support that roaster's tagline of "simply the world's finest coffee," but when the beans are put into able hands, like at Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store, it's damn good.
In closing: Hey, L.A. Times -- until you relate all details of your experiment, sample a reasonably small amount of coffees in one sitting, and convince your discerning public that you know what you're doing when it comes to coffee, we're not listening. While we sincerely appreciate you spotlighting our beloved beverage in your extremely influencial paper, you could have done it so much better.