If you ask any coffee professional a question about water, be prepared for a long answer. But very simply put, the quality of your water is integral in achieving the best possible result from your coffee beans. Yes, that means you, person making coffee at home right now!
Every espresso machine should come standard with a water purification system that softens and cleans the water from your main water supply to your coffee.
In the second edition of TheCoffeeMag we asked Wayne Burrows of
Rebel Coffee to give us some insight into just how important the water component of coffee is. You can
read the whole article here.
And so it makes sense especially after Matt Perger's intense focus on the origins and processing of his milk in hi
s WBC performance last year, that a barista would delve into the water used to make the coffee. That barista was new UK Barista Champ, Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood.
As
Sprudge reports,
“Water doesn’t just effect a barista,” Colonna-Daswhood told his judges (and the crowd). “It affects everyone who’s ever had a coffee.” Donning a white lab coat and safety glasses for extra effect, Colonna-Dashwood spent an intentionally large amount of his 15 minutes away from the espresso machine, delivering a lecture (in brief) on water science basics like the role of calcium & magnesium, the principles of binding energy, buffers, acids and alkalines, and much more. It was the rare educational moment at a barista competition that manages to be both informative and crowd pleasing. This was not a simulation of a college lecture; it was a simulation of a very good, fun, funny college lecture, and I assure you, there’s a difference.
Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood became lecturer extraodinaire, educating the judges and crowd, all the way to the number one position in the UK.
So take note then coffee enthusiasts, what water do you use to make your coffee? Straight outta the tap? It may seem like we're getting overly technical, talking about purifying your water before making a plunger say, but it could also be the simplest thing in the world.
Maybe we can ask the baristas out there to suggest the easiest ways of achieving the best possible water to make coffee at home?
