DRINKS: COUNTER CULTURE BREWING BASICS

I can’t remember the last time I used an electric coffee pot. In the age of handmade craft-everything, my counter is lined with presses and cones. I keep bags of several different locally roasted coffees on hand at most times and yes, I measure my grinds out by weight. In other words, I care a decent amount about my coffee. But something was always wrong; despite adapting my brewing times, boiling water in a different kettle and cleaning all my equipment, I always ended up with a bitter cup. Enter Counter Culture Coffee’s Brewing Basics course.

Dedicated to creating cutting-edge coffee people, Counter Culture responsibly and ethically sources, roasts, and delivers some of the most delicious coffee in the world.

The Durham, N.C.-based company operates eight training centers around the country, offering classes to professional baristas and home-brewers alike. There are weekly company-wide cuppings held in the centers, as well; every Friday at 10 a.m., company businesses grinds to a halt so that employees and guests can sample several different roasts together. The Somerville space has been opened for less than a year, right outside up-and-coming Union Square. Counter Culture offers classes such as Milk Chemistry Lab, Brewing Science (I-III), Comparative Cupping, and Coffee Origins.

Brewing Basics is the newest and most approachable course for non-industry coffee lovers.

It offers coffee drinkers the elemental skills and knowledge to troubleshoot a home-brewed cup and zero in on what might be going wrong. The objectives of the course are to learn the three main elements that impact coffee brewing, to apply these elements to proper brewing, and determine how to make adjustments at home. The class starts with a basic introduction to the coffee bean and moves on to the intricacies and importance of extraction and strength. The class breaks into groups and each group is given the equation for an ideal brew. Instructors are on hand to demonstrate the most simple of questions; the most effective way of folding coffee filters and the best way to pour water over grinds (circular motions!).

Members of the class are then instructed to make intentional mistakes.

Through brewing batches that have too many or too few grounds, which are either too coarse or too fine, the taste of these missteps can be pinpointed and corrected. Different brewing methods are all addressed, from immersion to decoction.

Perhaps the most beneficial demo was the difference between beans ground in a traditional tabletop electric blade grinder and a Burr grinder. Brewing the two batches side by side, the rough cut of the blade grinder failed to give the beans a uniform grind. Despite a meticulous brew, the coffee was transformed into a subpar concoction, riddled with bitter notes and a dry mouthfeel.

With the help of Brewing Basics, I was finally able to put my finger on the exact problem I had been trying to diagnose myself for years—