Some thoughts on coffee strength
" Caffeine is to coffee as sex is to love making."
—Longwinter
Some people enjoy coffee. Of those, some like it "dark as night and sweet as sin"; some want it corrosively strong and bitter; others want it to be fully charged with caffeine, the beverage equivalent of rocket fuel. Lots of people want it "strong", but what does [that mean? In England I had a friend visiting who told me he liked his tea strong, so I made a pot, steeped the tea for a full five minutes and poured it for him. He turned his nose up at it; what he meant by "strong" was regular-strength tea, but with less milk in than most people. "Strong" is a dangerous word as it means more than one thing, and it's different across the population. De gustibus non est disputandum.
For coffee drinkers, you'll hear three definitions. One is "strong, like espresso', by which they mean a high extraction of solubles from the coffee. For others, strong means high in caffeine, to others, it means, like my friend above, undiluted by milk. Yet others mean that the coffee by nature should be strong-tasting, meaning a dark, dark roast.
I've seen coffees in stores which are marketed as "strong", "world's strongest" and I have no idea what that even means. One noder wrote ""I can't find my perfect coffee, I can't seem to find a coffee as strong as I like—by 'strong"'I just mean bitter and overpowering. I was drinking black espresso for a while but I didn't want to wear out my mother's espresso machine so I stopped." They mean dark-roasted and extracted in as little water as possible, so I'd recommend espresso or Moka pot. It's hard for me even to think of the kind of coffee they enjoy, as it sounds dreadful to me; I want full flavour, but more in alignment with specialty coffee, robust fruit flavours, coffee with strong character. I'm not even fussed about the caffeine. Some days I'll have no more than two caffeinated coffees, with the remainder being decaffeinated coffee.
How you choose to drink coffee does affect your perception of the word "strong". Espresso drinkers arealready getting a strong-tasting coffee which can absolutely punch you in the mouth. Those drinking milk-based beverages might look at the traditional (one shot) cappuchino or a cortado raher than the flat white or God forbid, long, drawn-out Starbucks-style drinks.
Espresso drinkers looking for "stronger" look to the dark roasts, the opposite direction from me, who positively relishes a tasty medium roast, and even on occasion, a light roast. I had a light-roast trad cap the oher day that was utterly divine, for example. I'm not putting down the folk who enjoy that dark-roast flavour, a chacun son gout.
Deciphering roast level
The lightest end of the spectrum is sometimes called cinnamon roast, a coffee that is pale in colour and preserves much of the bean’s original acidity and floral or fruity flavours. City roast is a light-medium roast that finishes just at the end of the first crack; it offers a balance of brightness and sweetness with mild caramel notes. Full city roast is medium, taken a bit further into the roast, reducing acidity and highlighting chocolatey or nutty flavours. Vienna roast, a medium-dark level, introduces light oil on the surface and a deeper body with mild smoky tones. French roast is darker, oilier, and more bitter, often with roasty, carbonised notes. Italian roast is the darkest common level, extremely oily and bitter, where the roast character completely dominates and origin characteristics are totally lost. Lighter roasts generally preserve more of the origin characteristics, the darkest don't even pretend to care about that. Medium roasts can be a sweet spot, having the classic coffee flavour, but hinting at the real coffee flavours. Most specialty coffee small-batch roasters will avoid the dark roasts, focusing on light and medium to highlight the additional dimensions of flavour.
How not to make strong coffee
Coffee is part art, part science. Science says that exracting flavour from coffee grounds takes water and time. Water and coffee have to hang out long enough for the solubles to be extracted. Piling your brewer full of coffee will not make your coffee strong, in fact may have the opposite effect. Too much coffee in any automatic brewer or filter system means the water can't get through the grounds to work the flavour magic, and you're doomed to under-extraction. Water will act under gravity and work around the bed of coffee, bypassing it altogether. This is a big mistake made by many
Moar caffeine
There's only one way of getting more caffeine, and that's to start with beans that naturally have higher concentrations. In real-world terms, that's Coffee robusta, which naturally has more caffeine than higher-altutude Coffea arabica, the superior flavour bean. The coffee plant produces caffeine to deter insects, and there are fewer harmful bugs at higher altitudes, hence less caffeine. More caffeine? Look for robusta beans commonplace in commercial coffee. Think the darker Italian coffees, Illy and Lavazza, Vetnamese coffees and anything that is bulk roasted by industrial combines. It's going to taste dark and oily, especially dark-roasted, but what do you care? You only want caffeine.
Extracting more
You might look at immersion methods of brewing, cowboy coffee, the French Press or Aeropress. Allow longer contact times, but be warned that this leads to bitterness and astringency. For any percolation method, you're doomed. As discussed, adding ore coffee will not work. Espresso is quite efficient at getting solubles into solution, or the darling of the modern coffee geek, the filter pourover. To truly get the most out, you'll need good understanding of the mechanics, and be prepared to spend time learning technique and practicing. You'll need to read a lot, listen to coffee experts (My favourite is the weird coffee person on YouTube, James Hoffmann. Watch, learn, practice, watch your grind size and good luck.
For my part, the moka exxpress pot makes good, balanced, strong-flavoured coffee, and I'm a big fan of balance. I'm also not that interested in caffeine after 10:00. If I wanted the bitter strength that'd make a cowboy puke, I'd buy only Starbucks, but i'm a coffee snob, so would never recommend that option. if you choose a moka pot, don't be tempted to think of it as espresso, it's not. Never tamp or compress the grounds in your moka, don't mess with something that's already working hard enough.
Final thoughts.
Honestly, avoid the rush to find or make 'strong coffee". A focus on flavour rather than strength is likely to be far more productive. Look for ways of getting your current coffee to taste better (how to ake better coffee at home and everyday coffee hacks may help. Ask questions, join a coffee discussion forum. Explore the new world of specialty coffee and save your time, money and hope. as always, i am here to help.
Hoffmann on caffeine strength
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