Specialty Coffee × Variables
Considering Variables
For example, in brewing, variables include the brewing equipment, water used, water temperature, beans, coffee amount, grind size, and more. In short, variables are the various individual choices and differences in each process related to coffee.
By reducing these variables, keeping them as consistent as possible, and minimizing variation, you can improve reproducibility.
On the other hand, even if you could reduce variables to the absolute minimum, it cannot be said that the coffee will taste the same every time. This is because there are too many uncontrollable, uncertain factors involved in coffee.
Uncontrollable Variables
For example, the flavor and aroma of roasted beans change over time. This is not a variable that people can control.
Even with roasting, even if you use a data logger and finish the roast mechanically according to a profile, differences can arise due to the effects of ambient temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure, which can change how heat is transferred or affect the exhaust airflow. Therefore, you cannot guarantee the same result.
To put it extremely, individual palates differ, and your senses and perceptions also change depending on how you feel on any given day. This is also an uncontrollable variable.
There are countless examples of such variables. In other words, for the reasons stated above, no matter how much you reduce variables, it is fundamentally impossible to brew coffee that tastes exactly the same every time.
Enjoying Variables
Even if a brew ends up different from usual unintentionally, something will have changed, and you will likely notice a different flavor from the last time you brewed it. If that suits your palate and you find it better, then the variables have brought you a positive result.
As roasters and baristas, we focus on reducing variables as much as possible and improving reproducibility to provide our customers with the best coffee every time, but when enjoying coffee on your own, it is not always necessary to do so.
The recipes published by THE WORD COFFEE also pursue simple brewing methods that reduce variables as much as possible, but they are designed so that you can make the final flavor adjustments yourself, taking the aforementioned variables into account.
You may find that when you brew coffee at home, you are enjoying various variables by trying different brewing methods, comparing changes after aging, or trying different cups. And from that, new discoveries and insights are often born.
Rather than viewing variables negatively, enjoy the coffee that can only be tasted at that time and in that moment. Isn't that another way to enjoy specialty coffee?