Introduction
As promised, this is a little follow up on our previous post about why our small batch, specialty grade instant coffee redefines what instant coffee can be.
Maybe we convinced you that we’ve addressed a lot of the problems with commercially available instant coffee products and produced something truly different. No doubt you are still asking yourself - “well that’s great but can any instant product really ever be better quality, and better value than home brew methods”.
In almost all instances the answer to this question is a resounding “Yes”. Here’s why.
1. Pods: Don’t get us started.
We’ll try to be brief here….but we really hate pods.
The Instant of Home Brewing - If you read back to our previous blog we explain the micro-economic drivers behind the “race to the bottom” that is commercial instant coffee. Pods are subject to all of the micro-economic drivers and so we end up with all of the same problems, some to an even worse extent. For example, the format of pods offers even less scope for product differentiation with alternative products being basically identical in format and quality. So we have the exact same, if not worse situation of high price elasticity whereby competitive drivers force industrial producers to selecting for the cheapest and nastiest beans on the market. You still can’t get a good coffee out of bad beans....even if you get George Clooney to put it in a little pod.
Wrong Dose - Remember when we told you about how the industrial instant producers optimise their extraction for quality over quantity? Well pods aren’t extracted coffee, they contain ground coffee beans. So how do you think the industrial producers might reduce the cost per unit output in the instance of pods? Yep, they simply put less in there. An original Nespresso pod contains 5 grams of coffee grinds (the Lungo line contains about 7 grams). Each double ristretto (about what is in one heaped teaspoon of our instant) contains 21 grams of quality award-winning, specialty grade coffee from Sprocket Roasters. It makes sense that you can’t get a good, flavourful satisfying coffee from bad beans. Why the pod-folks seem to think you can get one from about a quarter the amount of bad beans is beyond us.
Stale Grinds - Another issue with pods is that they are pre-ground. Once your coffee is ground you have a maximum of couple of days before it will go stale and lose a lot of its desirable qualities. Sealing the grind in pods helps, but the fact is that the process of oxygenating the coffee and degrading its volatile compounds has already been thrown into hyperdrive by grinding and then residual oxygen will continue the process to some degree once packaged (even if the seal and the storage conditions are perfect, which they probably both aren’t). At Lynch’s we grind every shot that goes into our instant coffee as we would for any other coffee that we make at the café, from freshly roasted beans, on demand, as we extract it.
Just Not Up To Task - Pod machines simply don’t achieve the temperature or pressure for a proper espresso extraction. Even if the beans were any good, even if they were fresh, even if the dosing ratios were correct, even if the machines are properly cleaned and maintained. The machines just aren’t able to extract a good espresso. We’ll cover what is required to do this a bit more when we talk about home espresso, suffice for now to say that pod machines aren’t it.
An Unmitigated Environmental Disaster - One last word on pods before we move on, and this is not even related to the quality of the coffee. Pods are an unmitigated environmental disaster. In Australia alone, about 3 million coffee pods are consumed daily. Even when pods are made from potentially recyclable materials the infrastructure to do so in Australia is very limited and so only about 10% are ever recycled, the rest makes up about 8,500 tonnes of landfill every year (that's about a thousand school buses worth, just in Australia). Globally of course the situation is much worse with hundreds of thousands of tonnes annually of aluminium and plastic pods that can takes centuries to decompose in landfill.
2. Home Espresso: Too Many Variables, Too Little Reward
Espresso is life for us at Lynch’s Hub. But we don’t have espresso machines at home. We asked our roasters at Sprocket if they have an espresso machine at home. They don’t. We asked some other folks that we really respect in the industry here in Newcastle if they have espresso machines at home. Guess what, none of them do either. So why is it that even people who really know their stuff when it comes to making espresso don’t bother with it for home brewing?
It’s because there’s just far too many variables to get right at home and even if you had all the time, money and patience in the world, in all likelihood your home set up just isn’t up to the task. Here’s some of the variables that impact on espresso extraction. We could write a separate blog on each one but we’ll try to get through them with some sort of brevity:
Water – The properties of your water can quite significantly impact how your espresso tastes. Most home systems are not going to have optimal water filtration and treatment. At Lynch’s Hub we use a state-of-the-art reverse osmosis to ensure that the water we use for extraction is always at the ideal pH and water hardness for optimal espresso brewing.
Temperature – A stable temperature throughout extraction plays an important role in the extraction process to evenly extract the desired flavours and oils. Budget home machines generally struggle to maintain ideal temperatures throughout the extraction and even pricier models can struggle especially when effected by limescale built up through poor water quality or a lack of maintenance.
Pressure – Pressure plays a crucial role in extraction and significantly impacts both the flavour and formation of crema. Typically, the machine needs to achieve and maintain about 9 bars. Commercial machines use rotary pumps for consistent pressure throughout the extraction process. Most home machines use vibration pumps which are prone to pressure fluctuations and therefore suboptimal extraction. Again, drop the ball a little bit with maintenance and this will wildly affect your coffee.
Grind – This is critical. Most home grinders are blade grinders which are borderline useless in producing the fine, uniform grind required for good espresso. Affordable burr grinders can be even worse if they just are not able to achieve the fineness required for espresso, have limited adjustability or misaligned burrs which are all common in home grinders. Even if you have invested heavily in a high-end burr grinder which you maintain regularly then it needs to be dialled in. In a commercial setting this is happening constantly from coffee to coffee, but at home, if you want a decent espresso you are probably going to need to run three or four shots just to get your grinder dialled in every time you want a cuppa. That’s going to get pricey fast.
Freshness – Everybody knows that freshness of coffee is a hugely important factor and for this reason you really can forget pre-grinding because grinding dramatically accelerates the deterioration of coffee. Even in whole bean format though, if you are holding beans at home after opening for more than a few days to a week, they are not going to be at their best.
Cleaning and maintenance – You are going to want to have a daily cleaning routine for your portafiller, brew group and steam wand, weekly deep-cleaning and backflushing as well as periodical descaling depending on the water hardness. Neglecting these aspects will seriously influence coffee flavour, machine lifespan and operational efficiency.
Learning Curve – Even if you have unlimited funds and invest in all the gear, you still need the know-how. Achieving consistent and quality espresso requires practice and understanding of a whole range of factors that play out in the cup. If you are a real enthusiast that wants to learn for the love of coffee, that’s great. But just know that there will be a long, steep, expensive learning curve filled with disappointing cups of coffee.
The thing about home espresso is that you can spend a heck of a lot of money and a heck of a lot of time and effort only to finally learn just enough to understand that café quality espresso is just not a thing that is achievable or affordable in the home setting. Filter and press options are likely more realistic for the home brewer but even then there’s a fair bit to get right and most don’t.
3. Filter and Press: More Forgiving, More underwhelming
Just like espresso, filter methods like drip and pour-over as well as press techniques such as French and Aeropress can theoretically produce a great home brew. Unfortunately, just like espresso it is the practical side of things where they generally fall down.
Ultimately all of the same variables are at play with these techniques but typically you have a little more wriggle room with some. For example because of the higher pressure and shorter extraction time, achieving a fine and uniform grind is essential for espresso. For drip, a medium-fine grind is generally preferred and this is more achievable for a lot of home grinders. Your grinder isn’t totally off the hook though, uneven grinds can still be a big problem with small particles clogging the filters while large particles aren't extracting properly.
You still have to get your head around brew ratios, temperature, brew time and a bunch of other factors if you want the coffee to be any good. Most people don’t have the tools, patience or experience to control these factors consistently. You are still going to have to maintain your equipment and clean up after yourself. Depending on where you live, water from the tap might still be a problem but you could get around that with filtration or bottled purified water. At any rate, these methods are ultimately much more accessible than home espresso and at the very least they are capable of producing a decent cup depending on your taste……unlike pods, which are not.
All said and done though, there’s a reason that half of the homes in Australia contain a rarely used press in a drawer somewhere or filter machine taking up space in a kitchen cupboard. Filter is milder, less intense. It lacks body. This is because the filter removes some of the oils and fine particles that contribute to the richness that we expect from our coffee. French press and to a lesser degree AeroPress, seem to go the other way. Your palate feels so overloaded due to prolonged extraction and mild-filtering that creates a muddy, silty mess to the point that its difficult to taste anything that’s happening in the coffee at all. Even if you time your brew and weigh the beans in to get the ratio right, in order to make it anything other than objectively bad you almost need to decant it into a different vessel after brewing.
So… Is our Specialty Grade Instant Coffee really better than home brewing methods.
Let’s just deal with pods first because that’s easy. Yes, our instant coffee is better. A thousand times, Yes. No contest.
Also, if you are camping, traveling or just a bit time-poor, also Yes. Of course home-brewing isn’t the right fit for you if you’re not home.
So far as other home brewing scenarios go, almost invariably the answer will also be, Yes. There will be some god-level, home-pros with exceptional (eye-wateringly expensive) set ups that have unlimited time on their hands and can consistently produce a great cup of coffee. You will know from your own experience though that this is the exception, not the rule.
The reality is that the home brewing equation doesn’t stack up for the average coffee drinker. Our specialty grade instant will almost always offer a better overall experience and consistently better flavour. No expensive setups, no maintenance, no new skill sets to learn, no space being taken up in the pantry or on the breakfast bar, no mess and no disappointment.
Coming Soon: What Actually is Freeze Drying?
In our next post, we’ll break down a bit of the science behind what freeze drying actually is and how we have used it at Lynch’s Hub to turn our café-quality coffee into a shelf stable instant product.