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The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee: Growing, Roasting, and Drinking, with Recipes
One of the country's most celebrated roasters explains how to choose, brew, and enjoy the new breed of artisan coffees at home, along with 40 inventive recipes that incorporate coffee or taste good with a cup.
Coffee is experiencing a renaissance and Blue Bottle Coffee Company has quickly become one of America’s most celebrated roasters. Famous for its complex and flavorful coffees, Blue Bottle delights its devoted patrons with exquisite pour-overs, delicious espressi, and specialized brewing methods.
Yet as coffee production becomes more sophisticated with specialized extraction techniques and Japanese coffee gadgets, the new artisan coffees can seem out of reach. The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee explains this newworld from farm to cup, exploring the bounty of beans available and the intricate steps that go into sourcing raw coffee from around the globe. Blue Bottle founder James Freeman coaches you through brewing the perfect cup ofcoffee, using methods as diverse as French press, nel drip, siphon, and more to produce the best flavor.
For coffee lovers who want to roll up their sleeves and go deeper, Freeman explains step by step how to roast beans at home using standard kitchen tools—just like he did when starting out. The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee also introduces a home technique for cupping, the industry method of tasting coffees for quality control, so you can hone your taste and share your meticulously roasted coffee with friends.
Rounding out the book are more than thirty inventive recipes from Blue Bottle pastry chef and former Miette bakery owner Caitlin Freeman thatincorporate coffee or just taste particularly good with coffee, such as Saffron Vanilla Snickerdoodles, Stout Coffee Cake with Pecan-Caraway Streusel, Affogato with Smoky Almond Ice Cream, Coffee Panna Cotta, and more.
With more than one hundred stunning photographs showing coffee’s journey from just-harvested cherry to perfect drink, this distinctive and deep guide to the new breed of amazing coffees from one of the top artisan coffee makers will change the way you think about—and drink—coffee.
Coffee is experiencing a renaissance and Blue Bottle Coffee Company has quickly become one of America’s most celebrated roasters. Famous for its complex and flavorful coffees, Blue Bottle delights its devoted patrons with exquisite pour-overs, delicious espressi, and specialized brewing methods.
Yet as coffee production becomes more sophisticated with specialized extraction techniques and Japanese coffee gadgets, the new artisan coffees can seem out of reach. The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee explains this newworld from farm to cup, exploring the bounty of beans available and the intricate steps that go into sourcing raw coffee from around the globe. Blue Bottle founder James Freeman coaches you through brewing the perfect cup ofcoffee, using methods as diverse as French press, nel drip, siphon, and more to produce the best flavor.
For coffee lovers who want to roll up their sleeves and go deeper, Freeman explains step by step how to roast beans at home using standard kitchen tools—just like he did when starting out. The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee also introduces a home technique for cupping, the industry method of tasting coffees for quality control, so you can hone your taste and share your meticulously roasted coffee with friends.
Rounding out the book are more than thirty inventive recipes from Blue Bottle pastry chef and former Miette bakery owner Caitlin Freeman thatincorporate coffee or just taste particularly good with coffee, such as Saffron Vanilla Snickerdoodles, Stout Coffee Cake with Pecan-Caraway Streusel, Affogato with Smoky Almond Ice Cream, Coffee Panna Cotta, and more.
With more than one hundred stunning photographs showing coffee’s journey from just-harvested cherry to perfect drink, this distinctive and deep guide to the new breed of amazing coffees from one of the top artisan coffee makers will change the way you think about—and drink—coffee.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
226 people are currently reading
1130 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
August 3, 2016
This book is a mix of general education about coffee, advice on how to make coffee, the history of Blue Bottle, and baking recipes.
The brewing instructions were pretty good, but they might daunt a reader who’s merely curious about making better coffee and isn’t yet willing to invest a lot of time and money. I think The Joy of Coffee is both more useful and more accessible. Come back to The Blue Bottle Craft if and when you’re ready for more.
Some of the stories about Blue Bottle’s business were interesting, but they come across as kind of full of themselves. There’s a long paragraph that treats being awake at 5:30 AM to start roasting coffee as some kind of important philosophical act. Puh-lease.
The brewing instructions were pretty good, but they might daunt a reader who’s merely curious about making better coffee and isn’t yet willing to invest a lot of time and money. I think The Joy of Coffee is both more useful and more accessible. Come back to The Blue Bottle Craft if and when you’re ready for more.
Some of the stories about Blue Bottle’s business were interesting, but they come across as kind of full of themselves. There’s a long paragraph that treats being awake at 5:30 AM to start roasting coffee as some kind of important philosophical act. Puh-lease.
September 19, 2013
Warning, this is about obsessive, extreme caffeine practices, and might not sound entirely reasonable to the occasional passerby. But if you grind and brew your own coffee, fresh for every cup you make, if you've maybe even roasted your own, come along . . .
This book turned out to be a testament neither to James Freeman, (self confessed hero of his own story in this volume) nor to the Bluebottle enterprise, (his tweaky / high-end coffee chain), but --- to the power of the internet, the kind of person that uses it, and its obsessive user groups acting independently. Who turn up and turn out more information-- at no cost or obligation-- than any 'enthusiast' book, shop or scene can possibly compete with.
Over the years, I've come around in my own coffee brewing, to a very happy and simple conception of what makes great coffee happen in my kitchen. But it hasn't been a simple solution. Since the onset of the coffee-drinking era as a teenager, I've been following new developments and old-school renaissance movements in coffee culture; this wasn't because I'm so very progressive in outlook, but because the level of coffee quality in America is so drastically uneven. Anyone who ever got a glimpse over and above the grim, faded façade of the Maxwell House . . . knew there could be a better future. The odds of getting proper coffee in this country, outside of hipster sanctuaries, and even in 2013, is at best a 5o/5o proposition. Anyone who's had a long look at the problem has had to take the process into their own hands, or flip the coin.
Long before there was a starbucks on every corner, the Italian methods came to the States by way of the Little Italys of the country, and the urban hip-zones, going back to the fifties. If you were outside of that loop you got thin, objectionable, burnt coffee. For me the answer has been a long journey of invested resources and time. Cutting to the present, and after hundreds of dollars in espresso machines (okay, more), thousands of hours of happy practice, and uncounted pounds of coffee . . . some interested nosing-around on the internet led to something where you didn't even use a machine.
Rather than outlining my search, I'd suggest googling "bloom" or pour-over brewing, and paying attention to anything that references the Japanese methods, like the 'Hario' or 'Nel' ways of doing coffee. For me the bloom came early, long before the Hario, but it is largely the same thing, a careful, slow conception of what is basically a "drip" methodology. And without steam, chrome machines, timers, valves, pressure-gauges or self-important baristas pulling levers and looking faux-casual.
(Worth it here to note, I'm not suggesting that a Bloom or Pour-Over is the same as an Espresso or Cappuccino, or necessarily even replaces those classic coffee types. I'm only saying that for me, the concept of "Cup Of Coffee" is taken to considerable, subtle new heights via the basic bloom thing, even to the extent of not caring if I ever get near those frothy icons ever again. Everyone's mileage varies, but this fundamentally primitive method takes water, coffee, and a bit of paper or flannel --and makes something unbelievably sophisticated.)
Having gone down all that road I rarely even pick up books about coffee, and if it weren't for Blue Bottle's renown in the Pour-Over world, would not have cracked this one either. And funny thing. Other than a few odd factoids, I kind of already knew just about everything on offer here in The Blue Bottle Craft Of Coffee. It should be emphasized that there is valuable info here, and some of it may even be startling for the coffee novice. But I found this surprisingly free of any truly unusual info, and certainly anything of use here can also be found on the net.
Strange, really, that these methodologies, something so old-school and retro / analog / dare-we-say-it-genuinely-hip--- can be found for the price of a google search. No late nights, no San Francisco alleyway haunts, no Greenwich village or Tokyo adventures required. It's just out there, in the infinite ether, where cats are grumpy but emoticons wink, and coffee is ever the fuel.
__________
*** Note to Mr Freeman, do please stop using the word "delicious" in every paragraph. It stopped feeling casual or cute about 3oo iterations early, perhaps around when you branched into also saying "deliciousness". No big deal, but please.
This book turned out to be a testament neither to James Freeman, (self confessed hero of his own story in this volume) nor to the Bluebottle enterprise, (his tweaky / high-end coffee chain), but --- to the power of the internet, the kind of person that uses it, and its obsessive user groups acting independently. Who turn up and turn out more information-- at no cost or obligation-- than any 'enthusiast' book, shop or scene can possibly compete with.
Over the years, I've come around in my own coffee brewing, to a very happy and simple conception of what makes great coffee happen in my kitchen. But it hasn't been a simple solution. Since the onset of the coffee-drinking era as a teenager, I've been following new developments and old-school renaissance movements in coffee culture; this wasn't because I'm so very progressive in outlook, but because the level of coffee quality in America is so drastically uneven. Anyone who ever got a glimpse over and above the grim, faded façade of the Maxwell House . . . knew there could be a better future. The odds of getting proper coffee in this country, outside of hipster sanctuaries, and even in 2013, is at best a 5o/5o proposition. Anyone who's had a long look at the problem has had to take the process into their own hands, or flip the coin.
Long before there was a starbucks on every corner, the Italian methods came to the States by way of the Little Italys of the country, and the urban hip-zones, going back to the fifties. If you were outside of that loop you got thin, objectionable, burnt coffee. For me the answer has been a long journey of invested resources and time. Cutting to the present, and after hundreds of dollars in espresso machines (okay, more), thousands of hours of happy practice, and uncounted pounds of coffee . . . some interested nosing-around on the internet led to something where you didn't even use a machine.
Rather than outlining my search, I'd suggest googling "bloom" or pour-over brewing, and paying attention to anything that references the Japanese methods, like the 'Hario' or 'Nel' ways of doing coffee. For me the bloom came early, long before the Hario, but it is largely the same thing, a careful, slow conception of what is basically a "drip" methodology. And without steam, chrome machines, timers, valves, pressure-gauges or self-important baristas pulling levers and looking faux-casual.
(Worth it here to note, I'm not suggesting that a Bloom or Pour-Over is the same as an Espresso or Cappuccino, or necessarily even replaces those classic coffee types. I'm only saying that for me, the concept of "Cup Of Coffee" is taken to considerable, subtle new heights via the basic bloom thing, even to the extent of not caring if I ever get near those frothy icons ever again. Everyone's mileage varies, but this fundamentally primitive method takes water, coffee, and a bit of paper or flannel --and makes something unbelievably sophisticated.)
Having gone down all that road I rarely even pick up books about coffee, and if it weren't for Blue Bottle's renown in the Pour-Over world, would not have cracked this one either. And funny thing. Other than a few odd factoids, I kind of already knew just about everything on offer here in The Blue Bottle Craft Of Coffee. It should be emphasized that there is valuable info here, and some of it may even be startling for the coffee novice. But I found this surprisingly free of any truly unusual info, and certainly anything of use here can also be found on the net.
Strange, really, that these methodologies, something so old-school and retro / analog / dare-we-say-it-genuinely-hip--- can be found for the price of a google search. No late nights, no San Francisco alleyway haunts, no Greenwich village or Tokyo adventures required. It's just out there, in the infinite ether, where cats are grumpy but emoticons wink, and coffee is ever the fuel.
__________
*** Note to Mr Freeman, do please stop using the word "delicious" in every paragraph. It stopped feeling casual or cute about 3oo iterations early, perhaps around when you branched into also saying "deliciousness". No big deal, but please.
August 2, 2019
Being more than a casual coffee drinker, I’ve read a lot on the subject over the years and while I know that what I know is more than the average person, it is still quite limited. This book confirmed that “quite” part of my limits! Let’s call this book extreme coffee. Don’t misunderstand, it’s clearly a passion for Freeman and it shows in his writing...and he has a wealth of knowledge that he skillfully condensed for the reader. An appetite whetter.
Having cut his proverbial teeth on roasting, and made his living since 2002 doing that, Freeman talks a lot about it - even offering a home method. He discusses varietals, more as a overview than a treatise. And his examples of his descriptions of some of his company’s roasts are quite the imagery. He discusses many different brewing methods (the details might be a bit much for the casual drinker), concentrating on the ins and outs of espresso. I had to laugh at the chapter/section title for the single cup travesty: “A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL: POD COFFEE”.
So other than the nuances and incredibly specific details, I learned that
I also learned that the Starbucks, et al, really don’t know how to make a macchiato (okay, I already did know, but not to the gram level...) And I learned that melting chocolate with water is richer than milk. That’s from the second half, which is all about things to eat with coffee. Lots of recipes.
Recommended for the coffee drinker who wants more in the toolbox and for anyone with a thirst...for knowledge.
Having cut his proverbial teeth on roasting, and made his living since 2002 doing that, Freeman talks a lot about it - even offering a home method. He discusses varietals, more as a overview than a treatise. And his examples of his descriptions of some of his company’s roasts are quite the imagery. He discusses many different brewing methods (the details might be a bit much for the casual drinker), concentrating on the ins and outs of espresso. I had to laugh at the chapter/section title for the single cup travesty: “A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL: POD COFFEE”.
So other than the nuances and incredibly specific details, I learned that
Japan’s coffee culture is one of the most refined in the world, and it has had a huge influence on what we do a lot Blue Bottle [his company].
I also learned that the Starbucks, et al, really don’t know how to make a macchiato (okay, I already did know, but not to the gram level...) And I learned that melting chocolate with water is richer than milk. That’s from the second half, which is all about things to eat with coffee. Lots of recipes.
Recommended for the coffee drinker who wants more in the toolbox and for anyone with a thirst...for knowledge.
June 26, 2021
yeah it’s pretty good
ofc Freeman knows a lot about coffee, and he is perhaps The Guy when it comes to third-wave coffee in the bay area
his pretentiousness kinda irked me (like cmon you don’t have to reference Proust or Bergman dude) but i actually loved his trans-sensory descriptions of coffee. his musical analogies when describing coffee were especially interesting
the book covers a good spread of knowledge. there were some things that i wish he’d expand on more (eg why no single-shot baskets??) but in general this is a solid introductory coffee book
i skipped the recipes sorry
ofc Freeman knows a lot about coffee, and he is perhaps The Guy when it comes to third-wave coffee in the bay area
his pretentiousness kinda irked me (like cmon you don’t have to reference Proust or Bergman dude) but i actually loved his trans-sensory descriptions of coffee. his musical analogies when describing coffee were especially interesting
the book covers a good spread of knowledge. there were some things that i wish he’d expand on more (eg why no single-shot baskets??) but in general this is a solid introductory coffee book
i skipped the recipes sorry
April 1, 2019
Blue Bottle محمصة ومقهى مختص
وهذا الكتاب يعرض تجارب المؤلفين وأراءهم فيما يتعلق بالقهوة وبمقهاهم..
الكتاب مقسم إلى أربعة أقسام
الأول: القهوة وزراعتها
الثاني: التحميص
الثالث: مشروبات القهوة
الرابع: خصص هذا الجزء لوصفات الأطباق التي يقدمها المقهى
الكتاب أجاب عن تساؤلاتي المتعلقة بطرق إعداد المشروبات سواء المقطرة أو مشروبات الاسبريسو، وخطوات التحميص المنزلي وغيرها
الكتاب جميل وفخم، ومناسب جدًا لطاولة القهوة
وهذا الكتاب يعرض تجارب المؤلفين وأراءهم فيما يتعلق بالقهوة وبمقهاهم..
الكتاب مقسم إلى أربعة أقسام
الأول: القهوة وزراعتها
الثاني: التحميص
الثالث: مشروبات القهوة
الرابع: خصص هذا الجزء لوصفات الأطباق التي يقدمها المقهى
الكتاب أجاب عن تساؤلاتي المتعلقة بطرق إعداد المشروبات سواء المقطرة أو مشروبات الاسبريسو، وخطوات التحميص المنزلي وغيرها
الكتاب جميل وفخم، ومناسب جدًا لطاولة القهوة
September 17, 2021
Perhaps a good intro to specialty coffee, but I was left wanting a bit more. Most people would probably be happy with the level of detail, but I wanted to learn more about the science behind some of the information presented. Some good tips and information, but can be melodramatic at times. The second half of the book consists of bakery recipes (?).
March 14, 2017
page 4 | location 58-63 | Added on Wednesday, 27 August 2014 23:39:59
I begged and begged them to let me try the coffee, and after my prolonged campaign, they finally let me take a sip. Of course, I was repulsed. I couldn’t believe how terrible it tasted compared to how good it smelled. It turns out that the whoosh of coffee aroma coming from the can was the best moment that the coffee had. The maximally cheap, underdeveloped, preground coffee never had a chance of tasting good. This experience stayed with me much longer than it would have had the coffee been delicious—the tension between smelling something great and having it taste horrible gnawed away at me over the years. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was supposed to be more to the experience of drinking coffee.
page 16 | location 239-244 | Added on Wednesday, 27 August 2014 23:59:14
The ideal growing conditions for arabica coffee are a constant moderate temperature, a latitude between approximately 10 degrees north and south of the equator, and an altitude approximately 3,000 feet to 6,000 feet (915 m to 1,830 m), though coffee is grown successfully at lower altitudes. The higher the coffee is grown, the more slowly it develops and the denser the beans become, which can create more interesting flavors. Much like wine grapes grown under “stressful” conditions in great growing regions, the challenge of altitude forces coffee plants to focus their energy on developing seeds, rather than more extensive vegetative growth, which would be the plant’s inclination under less stressful circumstances.
page 17 | location 258-259 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 00:01:46
Yields average around 2 to 3 pounds (0.9 to 1.4 kg) of green coffee per tree per year. Each 100 pounds (45 kg) of coffee cherries results in about 20 pounds (9.1 kg) of green coffee.
page 22 | location 327-329 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 00:09:24
Whether out of economic constraints or the desire for a simple, delicious, muted flavor profile, Italian coffee companies have been putting time and energy into the careful development and maintenance of their espresso blends for decades.
page 22 | location 333-336 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 00:10:36
However, espresso extraction tends to increase the perception of acidity and body and mute funky qualities. So one of the reasons espresso extraction evolved is that Italians figured out how to use modest ingredients to make something delicious, the same way they reinvented basic cornmeal into polenta and, when they had no chocolate, created gianduja using sugar, cocoa powder, and hazelnuts.
page 27 | location 406-409 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 21:34:36
The rapid growth of Brazilian coffee farming in the nineteenth century, which caused massive deforestation, also led to Brazil’s near domination of the market. The country produced 80 percent of the world’s coffee for a time in the early 1900s, a number that has since fallen to around 30 percent. Coffee played a huge role in the industrialization of Brazil.
page 28 | location 425-427 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 21:36:48
Brazilian coffee tends to have a softer, more muted flavor than those grown at higher elevations, and this quality is heightened by natural and pulped natural processing. It has a lovely, round, gentle quality and is rarely strident. It has sweetness—molasses and sugary tones—without many fruity notes. Good Brazilian coffee is comforting, likable, and seldom polarizing.
page 46 | location 701-704 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 21:56:20
Roasting is, by definition, manipulation. While the quality of the raw materials helps determine the quality of the finished product, roasting is about making choices: which qualities in a coffee do you want to highlight, and which do you want to suppress? When I cup our coffee, I think about pleasure and context: Is this coffee delicious and interesting? Are we bringing out an appropriate flavor for the context intended for it? Have we failed to elicit something potentially appealing?
page 51 | location 773-776 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:04:53
For every varietal, you want to find the drop temp that enhances the qualities that make that particular coffee special. For example, altitude can correlate with density, and denser, high-elevation coffees, say from Ethiopia, often taste better when roasted with a higher drop temperature. On the other hand, a lower-elevation coffee from Brazil can’t take as much heat, so you would drop the Brazil at a lower temperature than the Ethiopian.
page 57 | location 867-869 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:15:16
As a coffee roaster, your life is divided in roughly 17-minute segments—enough time to load the green coffee, roast it, dump it, cool it, and send it on its way. That means you have about twenty-five chances in an average day, 125 chances in a week, and 6,500 chances a year to make something beautiful.
page 58 | location 875-879 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:16:32
Coffee has a life span: after being roasted, it gets more interesting for up to nine days after roasting—fuller, more complex, and generally more enjoyable. After that time, there’s an inevitable decline. Coffee oxidizes. The flavors become less vibrant, and eventually the coffee tastes dull. It’s stale. There’s really nothing you can do about it. Darker roasts are more perishable. Those tend to have a palpable decline within seven days after being roasted. Lighter roasts take longer to get to their peak and to become stale, especially light roasts of dense, well-harvested,
page 59 | location 901-903 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:19:24
(Aside from color, another way to assess when coffee is roasted to a medium level is if oil is visible, like little pin pricks, on the surface of the beans five to six days after roasting, but of course you can’t use that indicator while roasting.)
page 77 | location 1178-1180 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:53:08
Darker-roasted coffees generally benefit from narrower, or tighter, brewing ratios (meaning smaller amounts of water per a given amount of coffee). They also benefit from larger particle size, more recent roasting, and lower-temperature water.
page 77 | location 1180-1183 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:53:48
For two of the most popular blends Blue Bottle serves, which are on the darker side, we like a 10-to-1 brewing ratio on the second through fifth day after roasting, with 188°F (87°C) water. In contrast, with dense, very high-altitude, meticulously harvested and processed single-origin coffees roasted very lightly, we’ve found that a wider brewing ratio, hotter water, and a longer rest time draws
page 78 | location 1194-1197 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:55:10
generally like a total brewing time of 3 to 3½ minutes, which works out to about 1.5 seconds per milliliter. While it’s fairly obvious that you can vary the extraction rate by the speed at which you pour, grind size is also a factor. A finer grind will extract more slowly, regardless of the rate at which you pour. Extraction will also be slower if you’re using a grinder that produces a lot of fines, powdery particles that can clog the pores of the filter.
page 79 | location 1205-1206 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:56:10
Generally, water that is between 190°F and 205°F (88°C and 96°C) yields the best results, but experimenting is a fun part of the process. As a rule, the longer the extraction period, the lower the water temperature should be. Otherwise you risk heat damaging the coffee.
page 83 | location 1259-1263 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 23:03:00
Can you pour twice the weight of the ground coffee amount without any dripping? 1.75 times? 2.25 times? You can take satisfaction from doing this well, but it isn’t just a geeky fine point; it has an impact on the coffee you brew. It facilitates blooming, the process in which hot water causes the coffee to expand outward in a fascinating way. Allow it to bloom for 30 to 45 seconds, or up to 60 seconds for coffee roasted over 1 week previously. A slightly longer blooming time can add a lot of depth and vitality to older coffee.
page 124 | location 1887-1890 | Added on Friday, 29 August 2014 16:02:52
What critics of the current state of Italian coffee often ignore is what the country has achieved, which is near-universal adequacy. At almost any café in Italy, you can rest assured that the coffee will be at worst not bad, and at best pretty darn good. This isn’t faint praise; this is actually a glorious achievement—one that’s hard to imagine occurring anywhere else on the planet.
I begged and begged them to let me try the coffee, and after my prolonged campaign, they finally let me take a sip. Of course, I was repulsed. I couldn’t believe how terrible it tasted compared to how good it smelled. It turns out that the whoosh of coffee aroma coming from the can was the best moment that the coffee had. The maximally cheap, underdeveloped, preground coffee never had a chance of tasting good. This experience stayed with me much longer than it would have had the coffee been delicious—the tension between smelling something great and having it taste horrible gnawed away at me over the years. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was supposed to be more to the experience of drinking coffee.
page 16 | location 239-244 | Added on Wednesday, 27 August 2014 23:59:14
The ideal growing conditions for arabica coffee are a constant moderate temperature, a latitude between approximately 10 degrees north and south of the equator, and an altitude approximately 3,000 feet to 6,000 feet (915 m to 1,830 m), though coffee is grown successfully at lower altitudes. The higher the coffee is grown, the more slowly it develops and the denser the beans become, which can create more interesting flavors. Much like wine grapes grown under “stressful” conditions in great growing regions, the challenge of altitude forces coffee plants to focus their energy on developing seeds, rather than more extensive vegetative growth, which would be the plant’s inclination under less stressful circumstances.
page 17 | location 258-259 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 00:01:46
Yields average around 2 to 3 pounds (0.9 to 1.4 kg) of green coffee per tree per year. Each 100 pounds (45 kg) of coffee cherries results in about 20 pounds (9.1 kg) of green coffee.
page 22 | location 327-329 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 00:09:24
Whether out of economic constraints or the desire for a simple, delicious, muted flavor profile, Italian coffee companies have been putting time and energy into the careful development and maintenance of their espresso blends for decades.
page 22 | location 333-336 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 00:10:36
However, espresso extraction tends to increase the perception of acidity and body and mute funky qualities. So one of the reasons espresso extraction evolved is that Italians figured out how to use modest ingredients to make something delicious, the same way they reinvented basic cornmeal into polenta and, when they had no chocolate, created gianduja using sugar, cocoa powder, and hazelnuts.
page 27 | location 406-409 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 21:34:36
The rapid growth of Brazilian coffee farming in the nineteenth century, which caused massive deforestation, also led to Brazil’s near domination of the market. The country produced 80 percent of the world’s coffee for a time in the early 1900s, a number that has since fallen to around 30 percent. Coffee played a huge role in the industrialization of Brazil.
page 28 | location 425-427 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 21:36:48
Brazilian coffee tends to have a softer, more muted flavor than those grown at higher elevations, and this quality is heightened by natural and pulped natural processing. It has a lovely, round, gentle quality and is rarely strident. It has sweetness—molasses and sugary tones—without many fruity notes. Good Brazilian coffee is comforting, likable, and seldom polarizing.
page 46 | location 701-704 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 21:56:20
Roasting is, by definition, manipulation. While the quality of the raw materials helps determine the quality of the finished product, roasting is about making choices: which qualities in a coffee do you want to highlight, and which do you want to suppress? When I cup our coffee, I think about pleasure and context: Is this coffee delicious and interesting? Are we bringing out an appropriate flavor for the context intended for it? Have we failed to elicit something potentially appealing?
page 51 | location 773-776 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:04:53
For every varietal, you want to find the drop temp that enhances the qualities that make that particular coffee special. For example, altitude can correlate with density, and denser, high-elevation coffees, say from Ethiopia, often taste better when roasted with a higher drop temperature. On the other hand, a lower-elevation coffee from Brazil can’t take as much heat, so you would drop the Brazil at a lower temperature than the Ethiopian.
page 57 | location 867-869 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:15:16
As a coffee roaster, your life is divided in roughly 17-minute segments—enough time to load the green coffee, roast it, dump it, cool it, and send it on its way. That means you have about twenty-five chances in an average day, 125 chances in a week, and 6,500 chances a year to make something beautiful.
page 58 | location 875-879 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:16:32
Coffee has a life span: after being roasted, it gets more interesting for up to nine days after roasting—fuller, more complex, and generally more enjoyable. After that time, there’s an inevitable decline. Coffee oxidizes. The flavors become less vibrant, and eventually the coffee tastes dull. It’s stale. There’s really nothing you can do about it. Darker roasts are more perishable. Those tend to have a palpable decline within seven days after being roasted. Lighter roasts take longer to get to their peak and to become stale, especially light roasts of dense, well-harvested,
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(Aside from color, another way to assess when coffee is roasted to a medium level is if oil is visible, like little pin pricks, on the surface of the beans five to six days after roasting, but of course you can’t use that indicator while roasting.)
page 77 | location 1178-1180 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:53:08
Darker-roasted coffees generally benefit from narrower, or tighter, brewing ratios (meaning smaller amounts of water per a given amount of coffee). They also benefit from larger particle size, more recent roasting, and lower-temperature water.
page 77 | location 1180-1183 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:53:48
For two of the most popular blends Blue Bottle serves, which are on the darker side, we like a 10-to-1 brewing ratio on the second through fifth day after roasting, with 188°F (87°C) water. In contrast, with dense, very high-altitude, meticulously harvested and processed single-origin coffees roasted very lightly, we’ve found that a wider brewing ratio, hotter water, and a longer rest time draws
page 78 | location 1194-1197 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:55:10
generally like a total brewing time of 3 to 3½ minutes, which works out to about 1.5 seconds per milliliter. While it’s fairly obvious that you can vary the extraction rate by the speed at which you pour, grind size is also a factor. A finer grind will extract more slowly, regardless of the rate at which you pour. Extraction will also be slower if you’re using a grinder that produces a lot of fines, powdery particles that can clog the pores of the filter.
page 79 | location 1205-1206 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 22:56:10
Generally, water that is between 190°F and 205°F (88°C and 96°C) yields the best results, but experimenting is a fun part of the process. As a rule, the longer the extraction period, the lower the water temperature should be. Otherwise you risk heat damaging the coffee.
page 83 | location 1259-1263 | Added on Thursday, 28 August 2014 23:03:00
Can you pour twice the weight of the ground coffee amount without any dripping? 1.75 times? 2.25 times? You can take satisfaction from doing this well, but it isn’t just a geeky fine point; it has an impact on the coffee you brew. It facilitates blooming, the process in which hot water causes the coffee to expand outward in a fascinating way. Allow it to bloom for 30 to 45 seconds, or up to 60 seconds for coffee roasted over 1 week previously. A slightly longer blooming time can add a lot of depth and vitality to older coffee.
page 124 | location 1887-1890 | Added on Friday, 29 August 2014 16:02:52
What critics of the current state of Italian coffee often ignore is what the country has achieved, which is near-universal adequacy. At almost any café in Italy, you can rest assured that the coffee will be at worst not bad, and at best pretty darn good. This isn’t faint praise; this is actually a glorious achievement—one that’s hard to imagine occurring anywhere else on the planet.
November 28, 2012
Where do I begin my review of this book. I suppose it's best to start with my Blue Bottle revelation which occurred earlier this year during a weeklong trip to NYC. Thanks to Yelp I had read about Blue Bottle and was determined to visit and so I did, day after day. Surprisingly it was not the coffee that led me to so many return visits it was the granola which was, without question, one of the greatest things I have ever eaten in my life. I came home from vacation dreaming about this granola, wondering how I could craft it on my own. I used the ingredient list from a bag of it in attempts to reverse engineer the recipe all for naught. And then, glory hallelujah, I learned Blue Bottle was releasing a book which contained the recipe, I pre-ordered it immediately and have been living in Granola heaven ever since. All that to say, if you purchase this book simply for the granola recipe you have made a wise investment.
But, believe it or not, this book is more focused on things other than Granola. It is part autobiography, part love story, part mad man's coffee manifesto and part cook book. It is wrapped into a beautifully bound, wonderfully photographed book which I found to be highly enjoyable. While I may never spend the hours (and thousands of dollars) in learning to pull a perfect espresso shot I have new respect for those that value the art. And while I may value the convenience of my drip coffee maker over mastering the perfect pour over technique and coffee to water ratio I have a new understanding of what makes coffee great and how to make mine better.
I seldom "read" my cookbooks but I was captured by this one and that is a good thing. Highly recommended for the coffee or granola lover in your life, especially if that person is yourself.
But, believe it or not, this book is more focused on things other than Granola. It is part autobiography, part love story, part mad man's coffee manifesto and part cook book. It is wrapped into a beautifully bound, wonderfully photographed book which I found to be highly enjoyable. While I may never spend the hours (and thousands of dollars) in learning to pull a perfect espresso shot I have new respect for those that value the art. And while I may value the convenience of my drip coffee maker over mastering the perfect pour over technique and coffee to water ratio I have a new understanding of what makes coffee great and how to make mine better.
I seldom "read" my cookbooks but I was captured by this one and that is a good thing. Highly recommended for the coffee or granola lover in your life, especially if that person is yourself.
September 18, 2012
If you think coffee is absolutely the most important thing in the world, this book is for you! If not, I still recommend it but you might need to put it down once in a while and roll your eyes just the tiniest bit.
Still, it's definitely inspired me to seek out some really good coffee, and I bookmarked several of the cookie recipes. :-)
Still, it's definitely inspired me to seek out some really good coffee, and I bookmarked several of the cookie recipes. :-)
April 30, 2013
Great cookbook about growing, roasting, and brewing different coffee types. It also includes fun, mostly simple recipes for pairing foods with coffee. Good read.
September 28, 2015
Probably the most pretentious book about coffee you'll find because who has the money for all of that, but very informative. Helps your craft of coffee improve a million times.
November 11, 2019
At last I found answers to many of my questions. Since two years ago, I have been trying to make latte art at home (with a lot of progress and not the kind of success I expected). This book was helpful to some extent. I have recently paid more attention to the origins of coffee beans and the roasting methods. This book shed a lot of light. I have also tried to roast coffee at home, which was not much of a success. This book helped me find a lot about my roasting mistakes.
I think the first half was dense in information. I found the second half somehow diluted and verbose.
If you like coffee and enjoy it, you might enjoy it even more and get deeper into it with this book (the book is not a requirement for enjoying coffee, though it helps a lot with understanding the countless number of factors impacting the experience).
Below I am bringing some notes I have taken from this book:
I think the first half was dense in information. I found the second half somehow diluted and verbose.
If you like coffee and enjoy it, you might enjoy it even more and get deeper into it with this book (the book is not a requirement for enjoying coffee, though it helps a lot with understanding the countless number of factors impacting the experience).
Below I am bringing some notes I have taken from this book:
"coffee should preferably be consumed within a year of harvest, though that can vary depending upon how it’s packed, shipped, and stored."
"The ideal growing conditions for arabica coffee are a constant moderate temperature, a latitude between approximately 10 degrees north and south of the equator, and an altitude approximately 3,000 feet to 6,000 feet (915 m to 1,830 m), though coffee is grown successfully at lower altitudes. The higher the coffee is grown, the more slowly it develops and the denser the beans become, which can create more interesting flavors."
"Yields average around 2 to 3 pounds (0.9 to 1.4 kg) of green coffee per tree per year. Each 100 pounds (45 kg) of coffee cherries results in about 20 pounds (9.1 kg) of green coffee."
"The two main processing styles used in the coffee industry are washed, also called wet, and natural, also called dry. Washed beans are washed or soaked in water to remove the outer pulp before drying, whereas natural processing means the beans remain in the cherry for drying."
"Natural processing also results in coffee with more body and less acidity."
"If the beans rest in the wet fruit for too long, the fruit will ferment and get moldy or impart a sour, yeasty taste to the coffee, so frequent raking is necessary during the drying period, which usually lasts around three weeks."
"Brazilian coffee tends to have a softer, more muted flavor than those grown at higher elevations, and this quality is heightened by natural and pulped natural processing. It has a lovely, round, gentle quality and is rarely strident. It has sweetness—molasses and sugary tones—without many fruity notes. Good Brazilian coffee is comforting, likable, and seldom polarizing."
"The Maillard reaction is the type of reaction that causes meat to brown or colors the crust on bread. It involves a reaction between sugar molecules and amino acids and produces more savory umami flavors than sweetness."
"Caramelization occurs at higher temperatures than the Maillard reaction and involves only sugar molecules. Paradoxically, increased caramelization results in decreasing sweetness but increasing complexity."
"Darker roasts are more perishable. Those tend to have a palpable decline within seven days after being roasted. Lighter roasts take longer to get to their peak and to become stale, especially light roasts of dense, well-harvested, well-processed, high-elevation coffee."
"Ground coffee is even more fragile. Espresso dulls ninety seconds after being ground. Courser grinds last a little longer: twenty minutes to an hour."
"The great part about cupping coffee is that it allows you to discover that it isn’t difficult to differentiate among coffees."
"Siphon coffee is the most theatrical of all brewing methods."
"Let’s be real: making espresso at home is expensive, difficult, and time-consuming. Struggling to be better at something makes us better people. Parenting, graduating from college, running a marathon, building a house with your own hands—these are all difficult activities, activities that no one should talk us out of just because they’re difficult. And perhaps making a really great espresso, although a modest endeavor, belongs on the list of things that we probably will never do perfectly but will benefit from in the attempt to do so. In other words, perhaps it’s worthy of our time, resources, and attention."
"Generally, what we are looking for with our blends is an espresso that is thick, sweet, caramelly, and complex, with a subtle brightness that never crosses the line to strident but also isn’t overly delicate."
January 27, 2025
I must admit I didnt finish the book, but i can confess I get the point from it. Let me tell you straight, it is a book about Blue Bottle brand. An on the rise coffee shop, might be seeing them worldwide on fancy street few years from now.
As a coffee shop, it tells a lot about coffee of course. I like how they explained a lot about history and coffee preparation. It reminds me of reading engineering book, where everything are measured by certain standards and shall follow certain rule. They also put improvisation categories as art, where finishing touch matters. Those parts cover 40% of the book, the most interesting part of it.
The next 30% is about coffee making, the science behind and the recipe. Depend on your favourite coffee, you may focus more on it. Somehow I still confused why they didnt mention about mochapod. Maybe they dont sell it there (I dont know)
I stop on the last 30% because it becomes a book of cake making. For me, it is more fun to eat cake.
As a coffee shop, it tells a lot about coffee of course. I like how they explained a lot about history and coffee preparation. It reminds me of reading engineering book, where everything are measured by certain standards and shall follow certain rule. They also put improvisation categories as art, where finishing touch matters. Those parts cover 40% of the book, the most interesting part of it.
The next 30% is about coffee making, the science behind and the recipe. Depend on your favourite coffee, you may focus more on it. Somehow I still confused why they didnt mention about mochapod. Maybe they dont sell it there (I dont know)
I stop on the last 30% because it becomes a book of cake making. For me, it is more fun to eat cake.
January 24, 2018
I enjoyed this book a lot. That being said, it's written by a truly stereotypical nose-in-the-air San Francisco native. Someone I can learn from through text, but couldn't stand to be in the same room with for more than two minutes. As an avid coffee lover and 5 year barista, I knew many of the practices, ideals, and techniques he described in the book. However, it was fun to read a refresher course, and I did learn about the Nel Drip method and also purchased a Bonmac ceramic pourover for $15 as he recommended.
Read this book if you're really passionate about coffee. Skip it if you dislike demeaning, judgmental snobbery.
Read this book if you're really passionate about coffee. Skip it if you dislike demeaning, judgmental snobbery.
January 31, 2021
Decent introduction to coffee from beans to brews, written with such a visible passion that renders its attention to details rigor and expertise rather than pretension and snobbery. Sometimes though, there are so many details that it can scare away ordinary coffee drinkers and even those who would like to take a step further, but by no means have the intention or resources to become an expert.
I wish there were more to read on the coffee culture and history, globally or even simply in the US, but this may have exceeded the scope of the book that the author has.
I didn't have a chance to try the recipes yet (which takes up more than a third of the content). Partially because I wish that these recipes had focused on what to make with coffee, not some random stuff as presented in this book. Like, why a braised boar shoulder recipe?
I wish there were more to read on the coffee culture and history, globally or even simply in the US, but this may have exceeded the scope of the book that the author has.
I didn't have a chance to try the recipes yet (which takes up more than a third of the content). Partially because I wish that these recipes had focused on what to make with coffee, not some random stuff as presented in this book. Like, why a braised boar shoulder recipe?
October 1, 2020
Once you read one coffee book you really have read them all. While I was looking for tips on espresso, this book was another general overview of the process, roasting, and making of coffee with nothing special in it besides the author's snark. Something hilarious with the author stating that espresso is simultaneously too hard for the average person to get but also not complicated enough for people to be interested in. It later devolves into a recipe book in order to just fill in the pages.
Read The World Atlas of Coffee by Hofmann for coffee info without the snark
Read The World Atlas of Coffee by Hofmann for coffee info without the snark
October 26, 2019
3.5 for this. The book went into full-fledged recipes towards the 2 nd half which i hadn't expected. But still I did gather knowledge on coffee vairieties and technicalities which was my purpose of reading the book.
Extra stars for the imaginative writing, like the line on aspirational geeky personality type who would like espresso machines which are simple machines yet giving the impression of being much more complicated
Extra stars for the imaginative writing, like the line on aspirational geeky personality type who would like espresso machines which are simple machines yet giving the impression of being much more complicated
August 11, 2018
3 stars. This book served as a decent introduction to coffee growing, roasting, and making. There were some nice recommendations for equipment and interesting coffee making tips. The tone of voice might be off-putting for some, but I would recommend this one if you are newer to coffee and looking to learn a little more.
March 31, 2020
This book was useful in showing me exactly how much i don't know about coffee. Because I'm an insufferable food person, I actually wish that I went more in depth about varietals and blending, but I also imagine that there is a lot of sensory information that is easier to experience than write about.
The baking section was definitely recipes.
The baking section was definitely recipes.
July 15, 2020
Not too geeky for a coffee nerd, much too elaborate for a lay man.
This is an individual's approach to speciality coffee and another individual's take on baking and cooking based on their expriences, learnings, travels, and most importantly, intuitions.
And in my opinion, they are doing beautiful things.
This is an individual's approach to speciality coffee and another individual's take on baking and cooking based on their expriences, learnings, travels, and most importantly, intuitions.
And in my opinion, they are doing beautiful things.
November 5, 2020
I’ve actually never been to a Blue Bottle coffee store and reading this book does make me want to travel to one to witness the magic in real life. It also makes me want to travel around Japan and Korea and sit in cafes all day long. If anything, I love people who are crazy for coffee and food, and strive for perfection in creating the best version of their chosen dish, so I enjoyed this read.
March 10, 2021
It was ok, but encyclopedic, and would have been a better read if it had focussed instead of trying to cram all of coffee into one volume.
The Blue Bottle story reads like small business 101 with obvious business steps treated like the dawning of a new horizon of business behaviour. Nothing really about how they patterned their coffee ☕️ to the customer.
The Blue Bottle story reads like small business 101 with obvious business steps treated like the dawning of a new horizon of business behaviour. Nothing really about how they patterned their coffee ☕️ to the customer.
May 7, 2018
Good for learning about coffee from start to end. Not really as much about James Freeman's experiences.
June 19, 2018
A lot of lovely pictures and thorough information about the growth and processing of coffee. There are even a few nice recipes at the end.
May 17, 2020
Coffee Nerds only. Sometimes a bit precious about technique. But a really interesting read for the coffee lover & some nice recipes towards the back.
Read
January 25, 2021Not going to rate since it wasn't what I was looking for (book on home roasting)
February 24, 2022
nice read, learned a lot about coffee
February 13, 2018
Neat survey of coffee through its various stages. Also has a super-solid recipe for rosemary shortbread.
April 25, 2018
Very good and instructional book. Will teach you much about coffee origin and helps you to bond with your coffee better. You will learn the basics of many methods for preparing coffee and you will also get some advanced tips. It is easy to apply the books information to different situations to help you communicate with your coffee.
Very good overall read, would advice to anyone who is in to coffee
Very good overall read, would advice to anyone who is in to coffee
September 14, 2020
If you love coffee, this is the book for you. It only says The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee but in fact it is actually about one man's journey discovering his love of coffee, and sharing the principles and philosophy of the third wave coffee movement.
I love this beautiful book. Such a nice weekend read. I also got mine as a christmas gift which, makes it even more precious.
I love this beautiful book. Such a nice weekend read. I also got mine as a christmas gift which, makes it even more precious.
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