This is the second brew guide that I am posting since we’ve gone into self-isolation and looking back at the past few weeks, I’ve actually quite enjoyed the time I’ve been able to spend at home with my partner, working on exciting new projects and making my way through more books than I was able to read in the entire year 2019.

I can strongly recommend the following: Normal People by Sally Rooney, Unfree Speech by Joshua Wong and Why I am no longer talking to white people about race by Reni Eddo-Lodge. But that just on the side.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve also had the chance to make a lot of fun new videos for my Instagram TV channel where I offer my recipe for making a lush coffee scrub, a how-to-guide for what Michal called the ‘ice-solation’ flash brew and my take on traditional Mexican café de olla. If you haven’t seen them yet, make sure you check them out here.

Now, let’s talk about our April ’20 coffee box. This edition saw us working with our legendary friends from La Cabra, newcomers Cocóra Specialty Coffee and Gwilym Davies’ new roasting company The Naughty Dog.

The coffees are absolutely delicious, as you would expect, and offer a wonderful range of flavours. From a rich natural Brazil to an vibrant washed Ethiopia and a surprisingly mellow Kenyan coffee.

To help you get the most out of these wonderful coffees, I’ve compiled my monthly brew guide with a recipe from myself and our brilliant roasters.

Plus, a recipe from The Barn for their Limited Edition Aramosa honey from Brazil that we offered as part of a special collaboration this month. Enjoy!

Basic setup:

As in any good kitchen or bar, you want to be sure to have a few key items at your disposal that will aid you in preparing a delicious cup of coffee.

These include:

• Scales (with or without a timer – you can use your phone or your watch)
• A good quality burr grinder such as the Comandante Grinder
• The Kruve Sifter (not required but handy to filter out fines)
• Your favourite brew method (Kalita Wave, V60, Aeropress etc)
• A clean vessel for brewing and decanting
• Water for brewing, ideally mixed at home.
• A pouring kettle but a regular kettle will also do, however, it requires more precision

It’s very important to always freshly grind your coffee just before preparation because coffee is very volatile and quickly loses its full aroma in a matter of minutes.

There are some really handy guides on how to mix your own water for brewing on Barista Hustle. We will soon also post our own recipe for you to use.

My recipe for filter:

V60: 19g of coffee ground medium-fine. Pre-wet your filter to remove the papery taste. Add you coffee and bloom for 45 seconds with 76g of water at 95ºC. Then, add your remaining 228g in slow circular motions. Make sure you add it in one go to keep the temperature relatively constant. Total brew time is around 3:00 minutes.

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La Cabra’s recipe for filter:

General: With this profile for our coffees we generally aim for an extraction yield of 19% and TDS of 1.36.

V60, Scale, Timer, Grinder, Pitcher. Brew Time: 3:30 min.

Water: 210g (7.40oz) purified water at 96C (205F) Coffee: 14,5g (0.51oz) 1.

Put the paper in your V60 and give it a good rinse with hot water. It removes all paper taste and preheat the equipment. Remove the rinsing water. Grind your coffee beans to a medium grind setting.

Add the coffee, tare your scale, start your timer. Pour 60g (2.12oz) water to create the bloom. At 45 secs: pour in 55g (1.94oz) water. At 1:30 seconds: pour 55g (1.94oz) water and at 2:15 add the last 40g (1.41oz). The water should have drained trough at 3:30.

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Cocóra’s recipe for filter:

V60: 12g of coffee ground medium-fine. Add 200g of water at 90°. Brew time: 3:00 minutes.

Cocóra’s recipe for espresso: