It has been a fun few weeks of roasting and brewing at Farmspot. We've had a pretty positive response and have enjoyed giving Jackson Heights' residents the opportunity to access the freshest roasted coffee available in the neighborhood. All our coffee is roasted within 4 days of Farmspot is sold once a week, and what is not sold on that Thursday is benched. Bottom line - we take freshness more than seriously.
In our ongoing quest to provide the best cup of coffee available on a Thursday night in Jackson Heights between the hours of 5-8pm we have been testing different brewing apparatus. So far we have offered cups brewed to order in an aeropress, and more recently French press.
Every brewing method has its strengths and weaknesses, the choice of one over another depends largely on the context and of course personal preference.
In the future I hope to do an in-depth run down on at least a few of the plethora of brewing options available but for now I'll say that the aeropress is an incredibly innovative invention capable of producing an great cup and is extremely quick and easy to clean up. The French Press is one of the legends of the coffee world and for good reason. Its strength is that it allows the oils from the coffee to end up in the cup as opposed to most methods which use paper filters. (the paper filter has the potential to absorb a lot of the volatile compounds aka good stuff you might want to drink) Another function of the filter in a French Press is that it allows some of the particulate to pass through, the result being a murky or muddy cup. This is something many see as a negative but personally I enjoy the slightly gritty, full bodied texture a FP can produce.
Both are great techniques but for our setup they're a bit too slow. So in the coming weeks we hope to introduce multi-cup pour-over station using a Japanese product I've hunted down that should speed things up without jeopardizing quality. Watch this space!
