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| Why Consider a Grinder? | |
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| Find out why a grinder is so important for great coffee or espresso. | |
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Home : Guides : Guide to Grinders : Do I Need A Grinder? | Items in Cart: 0 | |
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One of the best things you can do for yourself is experience the wonderful taste of coffee or espresso brewed from freshly ground beans. The time and effort it takes to grind your own coffee is well worth it as you simply cannot achieve the same wonderful results from pre-ground, prepackaged coffee.
Three Things that Make Coffee Great
When it comes to the perfect cup of coffee or the ultimate shot of espresso, there are key factors at play along with a multitude of more minor ones.
Fresh, pure and cold water is one of the primary influencing factors on your resulting beverage. A cup of coffee is approximately 98% water and impurities and chemicals can greatly impact the taste. Common city water in North America has a fair amount of chlorine and other chemicals that can be amplified in the brewing process. Filtered or bottled spring water provides you with a pure water source that won't impact the taste and in many cases will improve the overall product.
High quality roasted coffee is the second factor. If you take the time and effort to bypass the supermarket bean bins and seek out a local micro-roastery that provides high quality arabica beans, roasted on the premises daily, your benefit in the cup will be magnified greatly.
These two factors are almost a given, especially if you're visiting this website. You probably already recognize the impact fresh, pure water and quality roasted beans can have. You may have even done hours of research online, seeking out the ultimate espresso machine or coffee brewer for your morning ritual and budget concerns. But there is that third factor, and it is one that many people overlook - the grinder.
The grinder is often an afterthought in the quest for a perfect cup of coffee. It's the sad sack bench warmer that everyone overlooks. Where the espresso machine is the rock star, the coffee grinder may be the unheralded song writer or composer who never sees the limelight. But just like that composer, without the aid of a quality, well made grinder, the rock star of this coffee show just won't be able to perform to a level that anyone would even consider adequate. The grinder is a key factor. Don't overlook it.
The Aromatics and Taste Impact
Grinding is a tough business. It literally changes the chemical makeup of a coffee bean as well as actively shreading it to almost microscopic pieces. These chemical changes can have a serious impact on the quality of taste in the coffee cup or shot of espresso.
Immediately after coffee beans are ground, they begin to lose some of the most precious elements that make a good cup of coffee great. Once lost, these volatile oils, aromas, flavors and other chemicals are gone, never to return, never to come out in your cup, never to be tasted and smelled as you drink your cup of coffee or shot of espresso.
Two of those chemicals are ones known to most people - carbon dioxide (CO2) and lipids. Ask any chef, and they'll know what lipids are - they are food's equivalent of a courier company - they carry tastes and aromas from the bean to your tastebuds and olfactory sensors (commonly known as your nose). CO2 is one of the major factors in the production of crema on top of an espresso shot (the dark golden creamy top that is evidence of a well pulled shot). It also aids in the extraction and agitation of ground coffee during the brewing process.
These elements are released from coffee beans when they are ground - in fact, grinding can cause as much as 75% of the CO2 in fresh roasted beans to escape within minutes of grinding. Both of these elements are important, but there's also a third chemical that is readily attacking your coffee grounds the moment their cell walls are exposed. It's the same stuff that keeps you living and breathing.
Oxygen is a corrosive chemical. Oxygen is what makes meat go bad. It is what makes iron turn to rust. And it is what turns fresh ground coffee full of aromas into stale, bland coffee that can barely emit a scent or taste sensation. Oxygen attacks ground coffee from the moment you've exposed all that cell wall structure that comes from the act of grinding. It is slowly corroding the grinds, slowly leaching away whatever flavors and aromas left behind by the exodus of CO2 and the various lipid oils in the bean structure. Oxygen may bring life to us, but it brings a slow death to the tastes and aromas inside ground coffee.
It is because of this and many other chemical changes and shifts in the ground coffee that fresh grinding, moments before brewing, is critical to the production of a great cup of coffee.
The Grinder as the Rock Star
It is interesting that while coffee lovers are more than willing to spend a lot of money on expensive coffee makers and machines, they forego the grinder, or plan its purchase at a later date. It's equally intriguing that people will spend a lot of their hard earned money buying some of the most exotic and freshest high quality arabica beans, fresh roasted the day they bought them, yet they get the beans ground at the micro-roastery because they don't have a quality grinder at home.
Keep getting that fresh roasted coffee. Keep researching the market, magazine articles, friends' opinions and information websites about what the best espresso machine or coffee brewing device is for your price budget. But also learn that the grinder must be part of this budget, at least if seeking the best possible cup of coffee or the richest, sweetest shot of espresso is your ultimate goal. Move the grinder up to the head of the class, make it the rock star of your quest for a rich, full, and satisfying beverage experience.
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