Prologue

When I moved to New York six years ago, it was a chal­lenge to spot a cup of decent cof­fee in this cos­mopoli­tan city. Hard to believe, but cof­fee here is hope­lessly dull.

Now, here’s “Cof­fee: The New Wave”: espresso shops are open­ing every week, if not every day; cup­ping events are held on both sides of East River; sin­gle ori­gin beans are much talked about. ‘Sin­gle ori­gin’ refers to beans that are straight from one par­tic­u­lar estate, farm or co-op which are then roasted, brewed and enjoyed. What’s spe­cial about cof­fee from a sin­gle ori­gin? It’s the idea of ter­roir, which is bor­rowed from wine tast­ing. Ter­roir is the notion that topog­ra­phy, soil and cli­mate can make two brews taste dif­fer­ent, even if they are grown from the same species of cof­fee plant.

Notwith­stand­ing this hype about ‘sin­gle ori­gin,’ this wave seems dis­turbed by the rock of estab­lished brew­ing meth­ods and roast­ing inter­pre­ta­tion. Con­trary to ‘sin­gle ori­gin’ is the ‘blend’ which is the mix­ture of beans from dif­fer­ent ori­gins. ‘Blend’ beans have pre­vailed in the spe­cialty cof­fee mar­ket for a long time due to the nature of the ubiq­ui­tously applied espresso machine. After all, roast­ing, brew­ing and the appre­ci­a­tion of the cup are all inter­re­lated and des­ig­nated to meet cer­tain taste sen­sa­tion expec­ta­tions. Hence, darker roast­ing is nec­es­sary, the espresso machine is irre­place­able and the appre­ci­a­tion would be lim­ited. Call it The Trin­ity. To explore the most of what ‘sin­gle ori­gins’ has to offer, new roast­ing ideas are needed, brew­ing alter­na­tives must be found or invented, and taste sen­sa­tions could be more dar­ing. The Clover brew­ing sys­tem is one of the exam­ples com­ing in this cof­fee new wave.

There’re a lot more to be explored. The cof­fee new wave in New York is the con­se­quence of a series of ask­ing ques­tions. I feel lucky to be here, in the mid­dle of this ‘wave.’ I don’t know where it’s going, but I’d invite you to join me in this exploration.

Raise my cup, cheers~

Revised 2010.0224