Espro Press Medium is here!

Well, it's actually here been close to one month - 3 weeks.  Let's start with some unboxing first :)

So how does it brew? Well, in short, it does brew a cup of fantastic press coffee with minimal sludge!

The goodies:
- Excellent cleaner press-style coffee
- Minimal sludge at bottom
- A nice piece of shiny eye-candy
- Insulate the coffee well so you can sip for an hour with coffee still warm
- Cleans easier than the small-sized Espro Press

The not so nice:
- Still retains plenty of coffee
- Pricey, very pricey
- Concern of mesh screen durability

I loved Espro Press for its ability to deliver a cleaner (less gritty) cup of press pot coffee, without much effort. If you're using a cheapo french press, the grittiness in cup will be very noticable and it's a huge jump to Espro Press. But if you're coming from one of the better made French Press with fine mesh screen, the difference is there but not extremely apart. Coupled that with the shiny beautiful stainless steel, it's a fun and stylish coffee press to use.

Compared to small Espro Press (10oz) I have used previously, the only difference I noted was the ease of cleaning. The bore of the medium Espro Press is larger that you can fit your hand for scrubing the internal. Whereas with the small Espro Press, you need a brush or sort to clean the inside of the vessels. Basically, that's the only difference I could notice for now.

Coffee retention. Yes. It's still here and you will still find a pool of coffee liquid beneath the filter when you're cleaning. Espro claims coffee retention was reduced, maybe it did. But there's still about 40-100ml of coffee left behind if you just use the Espro Pot as is. This does remind me of why I sold the smaller Espro Press in the first place. Nonetheless, if the coffee retention does bother you, like it does for me, you can do the pumping maneuver to get most of the coffee out.

Espro Pull
Somebody shared a video over coffeegeek forum about a Espro Pull method. Basically, it's similar to the concept used on French Press to obtain a cleaner cup. Instead of pressing, you push the filter down, before adding hot water and coffee. After you add coffee and water, the filter screen is lifted up (Pull) to remove the ground coffee. I tried this using the Espro Press, and wow. It yielded a superly clean cup of coffee. Very much like pour over coffee. Too clean in fact for my liking. What comes as a surprise is when brewed this way, the coffee retention on the Espro Press is ZERO. Tarak! I liked this method for the zero retention but didn't like the too-clean coffee.

Conclusion
So the Espro Press is still not a perfect French Press for me. But since bill's been paid, and quite expensive at that, I may choose to keep it to brew a clean cup of Press Pot coffee whenever I feel too lazy to break out my Portaspresso.

Coffee Brewing

95% of the time, espresso is my go-to drink. It's very simple - espresso is fun to make, the thick espresso flow just excites me for no reason, the taste is strong and yet subtle at the same time, I can drink more shots of espresso and only 1-2 cup max of brewed coffee.

That 5% of other time, I am always pondering between pour over, aeropress, french press, and moka pot. Though I find that I go back to French Press more often than not. It's very fool proof for someone that only brews once a blue moon. Coarse grind + hot water + Freshly ground roasted coffee and you're good to go. No dillema involved swirling clockwise or coutnerclockwise (pour over), inverted or non inverted (aeropress), paper or metal filter, dialing in, etc etc. =P

So what's not to like about the French Press? Most that are used to pour over coffee (It's officially the trend now in Malaysia) will say its the grittiness of the drink or sludge at the bottom of the cup


.........which brings to the whole point of this post... =P there's one Espro Press (18oz medium sized) coming to my way!! ETA next week and I am getting all excited!

If you have not heard about Espro Press, they're a double walled stainless steel French Press manufactured by Espro in Canada. The same company that designed the Espro Click Tamper & Espro Toroid Pitcher. What differentiates the Espro Press is the double microfilter that filters the coffee twice at 10-12 times more effectively. Leaving very little sludge & grittiness in the cup, yet a very robust cup. Sounds like a winner huh?

There is one big 'but' though. I have owned previously and later sold their smaller 8 oz Espro Press. The reason is they retain almost 2oz(60ml) of coffee when used normally, and 2 oz out of 8oz is a lot. I just can't bear to see those good coffee wasted like that.

Good thing is they claimed that the coffee retention is reduced with the new filter design. Let's wait and see. =D

New(left) vs Old(right) Filter Design

p/s: And one more thing I thought I should mention...they're not cheap!!

Water Effect on Espresso/Coffee Brewing

In brewing the finest cup of coffee, we always talk about the latest grinder for ultra uniform grind size, the most sophisticated brewers out there,the best coffee origin(no doubt important). However, we often take one very important thing in coffee for granted - the water quality.

Why water is important?
Water is the most important and abundant ingredient, in making up to 99% of a cup of coffee. So if the water used is off-flavor, it will be carried into the cup. So it's always recommended to used clean filtered water for your all coffee brewing, you don't want the muddy taste or extra particulate in your morning joe.

Solvent and solute characteristic
There is another important role of water which is as an acting solvent. In the coffee brewing process, it's all about how the water molecules extract the desirable aromatic compounds into the final solution (not the most scientifically precise description but that's the gist). This is why the composition of water (trace elements like mineral etc) is so important. If the water is too pure (distilled water for example), its affinity for pulling the solute will be very high, including those undesired ones. On the other hand, if there're way too much mineral or impurities, the water molecules will be too occupied to dissolve the desired coffee solutes. So the end result would be subpar too.

pH
The pH of the water will also skew the extraction preferential of the water, just like how pH affects a chemical reaction in a chemistry lab. You can imagine it to be more H+ in acidic water and more OH- in alkaline water. H+ and OH- each will attract different characteristic of molecules, which affects the final result.

Scale formation
Last but not least, for espresso machines maintenance, we will always hear about limescale built-up, or descaling. This is yet another role played by water. Water with a lot of minerals (Calcium and Magnesium) are called hard water. When hard water are boiled or heated, the excess calcium/magnesium will precipitate, forming insoluble white solids - AKA limescale. If this happens in an espresso machine, it will clog up the machine and lead to potentially costly repair. To prevent this, descaling (using acids) is done intervally, or the water is softened before going into the machine. Fortunately for us in Malaysia, the water here are soft water and scaling doesn't happen unless you use mineral water from the store.

My experience
Even though our water is soft water, is it suitable for coffee? In my experience, I don't think entirely so. It is safe for the machine because the water doesn't form scale. And for most of the time, the water is clear looking and free from mud particle. However, when brewing espresso with the water at my house, I can always sense that the espresso has an odd aftertaste. It's very subtle but is noticable to me. I suspect this may be the chlorine or some other ingredient used in the water treatment process. My house water is filtered with active carbon filter (Panasonic) and the filter cartridge is changed according to schedule. I tried searching high and low, on the internet, but couldn't find anyone else that has same experience as mine.

I have tried the RO water in my office too. It filters the water alright, but it has an alkaline cartridge that adds salt(not table salt) into the water. So the espresso brewed using that is very thick-bodied, but the aftertaste is extremely short. Too short for my liking.

So, the solution I've come to, is to use store bought bottled water. It seems to improve my espresso quality and no longer gives the odd aftertaste. The aftertaste is long and decent.

But this solution may not be suitable for everyone. And I suspect this is probably not a problem for most to begin with.

But the point is, if you're planning to use bottled water in your machine, beware of mineral water with high calsium/magnesium content. I find that most mineral water will form scale. If you're using mineral water for long term, scale-formation is certain and you need to descale every few months. If not, your best bet is to used filtered tap water because that is the safest water for the machine. Just a bit of compromise in the taste, but it's probably not very noticable to most...

Roasting - Bean Defects

Did you know that, coffee beans are actually not beans? I certainly did not, until I dig deeper into coffee recently! Coffee 'beans' are the seeds from coffee cherries, that are harvested and processed into green coffee seed, that eventually roasted into what we see.

Here's a little diagram I made using some pictures from Google search into an easy-to-understand diagram.

At the same time also, I got into coffee roasting at home. I learnt that any part of the process above, either from planting the coffee bushes, until final step where the roasted beans got into our hand, will have an impact on the final cup quality. For example, if the green coffee beans are not stored at proper temperature, or if the roasting proccess got screwed up, or if the beans are not harvested selectively, either way, we will end up with an inferior coffee. So that's a very thin line we're walkingthere. And even we did perfectly until the roasting step, with the wrong parameter in brewing, we will STILL ruin the coffee. So you get the idea- every step has to be perfect (or at least as close as humanly possible).

Next are some pictures I took from a Ethiopia Yirgacheff I roasted recently. These are bean defects and I will try to link to the possible cause.

Figure Above: Irregular beans - probably due to harvesting process

Figure Above : Empty Shells - Most likely due to sorting process

 Figure Above : Small/Mini Beans (Normal beans on left) - May be the plant is not fertilized enough, or just variation of the coffee plants

 Figure Above : Coffee Shards/Pieces - Could be due to transport or harvesting. Sometimes due to rough handling of roasted coffee

 Figure Above : Cut Beans (Normal beans on left) - May be cut by harvesting machines

Figure Above : Bug bites (Normal beans on left)- A good sign that they're not abusing pesticide? Haha

Figure Above : Unsure(Bug or cut?)

Figure Above : Quakers (Normal beans on Left)- these are beans that appear yellowish even after being roasted. May be due to immature beans harvested

Figure Above : After picking out all the beans defects

The next time before you grind your beans, just have a closer look at the beans. Are they regularly shaped? Any defects you could detect? If they look healthy, be grateful (I do!) that the person prior to you has taken their best effort to ensure beans arrived in your hand perfectly, it's not easy feat. Cheers!