Month: March 2012

Review: Top Moka mini coffee maker

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On March 27, 2012

In Coffee-related products

At the risk of becoming the queen of single-cup alternatives to Keurig or Nespresso brewers, here is a review of  yet another device which will produce one serving of the sustainably-grown coffee of your choice, rather than a questionably-sourced coffee in a wasteful capsule. This is a Mini Moka pot,  made by the Italian company Top Moka and provided by the Moka Pot Company.

About the pots

Moka pots are steam-based, stove-top coffee brewers, invented in the 1930s. Hot water is forced through ground coffee in a filter basket. While some steam pressure is involved, it isn’t much and even though moka pots are sometimes called “stovetop espresso makers” they do not produce true espresso, but rather a dense or richly brewed coffee.

The extremely cute Mini Moka pots come in both one and two cup models (the cup in this case being demitasse-size) and in various colors. The Moka Pot Company sells sets that come with cups, as well, not to mention a large variety of other types of moka pots. Based in the U.K, they ship to the U.S.

Typically, moka pots have two chambers. Water in the bottom chamber is forced through coffee in a filter basket, and brewed coffee collects in the upper chamber, from which it is poured. In the Mini Moka, there is only a bottom chamber for water and a filter basket. When the water is heated, it is forced up through the grounds in the filter and is dispensed directly into cups via a spout or spouts.

I received the two-cup Mini Moka version. These are made in Italy of aluminum, including the cup platform, and they are very sturdily built. There is a fair amount of debate regarding whether aluminum or stainless steel is best (see the Coffee section below) ; aluminum seems to be more common overall.

Making coffee in the mini moka

The Mini Moka brews four ounces of coffee into two small cups (although each might not contain exactly the same amount), or you can swing around one of the tubes and dispense all four ounces into a single cup (the manufacturer has informed me NOT to do this as it can cause a loss of pressure and failure of the device; both tubes should be stationary). Use care in the latter case, as a four-ounce cup can be hard to remove from under the tubes without spilling out some of the coffee; it may be easier to brew into two cups and pour it into one.

Don't do this; see text.

Making coffee seems relatively foolproof. Place water, four ounces or less, in the bottom chamber up to the release valve. Place coarsely-ground coffee in the basket. It holds about a third of an ounce (just under 9 grams). Don’t try to use instant coffee, espresso grind, or some other fine grounds. I just used drip grind. You can tap down the grounds, but don’t pack them. Screw on the top chamber and place over low heat. The Mini Moka pot can be used on any type of heat source, including gas, electric, and ceramic, but ideally a flame heat source should not be wider than the bottom of the pot. Place a little cup on the platform under each spout. It takes only about 5 minutes from the time you put the maker on the heat before it begins to dispense into the cups, and it finishes in just a couple minutes. I turn off the heat when the pot begins to make sputtering noises.

The Moka Pot Company has a very nice web site, which includes a page on how to use a moka pot, as well as how to season your mini (or regular) moka pot before you use it the first time.

Coffee from the Mini Moka

As for the coffee, it was perfectly acceptable. The filter basket has fine perforations, of course. There is also a similar screen acting as a filter between the grounds and the top chamber. Despite the fact that very fine sediment ends up in the cup, this makes an extremely smooth shot of coffee. It doesn’t have the creaminess of espresso, but depending on the coffee you use and the amount of water, it can have a similar intensity. It clearly makes a stronger cup than any K-Cup I’ve tried. If you’re satisfied with the strength of a K-Cup, you could just dilute a shot from your mini moka pot, and have fresher, better quality coffee to boot.

This isn’t the brew method you’d use to get the most out of special, high-quality beans, but the taste was certainly fine if good coffee was used. Although aluminum has been accused of imparting a metallic taste, I did not detect this. I’m sure that you could experiment a bit with water temperature, roast level, grind, and heat level, but honestly — we’re talking about a few ounces of decent coffee here. I really didn’t think I’d have a whole lot of use for a device like a Mini Moka, but I have found myself  using this for a quick pick-me-up after work, when I want to have just a little hit of coffee, but not a whole cup. This is yet another low-tech, less wasteful, simple alternative for making a small amount of coffee.

The quest to grow caffeine-free coffee

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On March 21, 2012

In Research on coffee growing

The science journal Nature recently ran a great article outlining the problems in growing an ultra-low or caffeine-free variety of coffee, particularly one that would be commercially-viable. It goes over the pitfalls of various attempts at developing and cultivating a species or strain of Coffea that would produce naturally caffeine-free beans, including hybridization and genetic engineering.

Decades of study have clarified how Coffea plants synthesize caffeine, the alkaloid that provides a measure of pest control to the plants. But manipulating the genes in Coffea arabica has not resulted in plants that reliably produce caffeine-free beans.

There are over 100 species of Coffea, and quite a few produce little or no caffeine. I wrote about one caffeine-free species from the Cameroon, described in 2008. Genetic compatibility problems have proven a barrier in transferring the caffeine-free property from other species to Coffea arabica. Wild, low-caffeine species of coffee have other bitter alkaloids that stand in for caffeine as pest protection, so cross-breeding with arabica has resulted in low cup quality. Individual plants of Coffea arabica that produce little or no caffeine have also been found, and arabica seeds have even been soaked in chemicals to induce mutations. Still, cross-breeding, cloning, and other techniques have so far failed to produce coffee with enough of the right stuff and less of the wrong stuff.

The article is open access, and I’ve included a list of related scientific literature below for more information.

Campa, C., Doulbeau, S., Dussert, S., Hamon, S., and Noirot, M. 2005. Diversity in bean caffeine content among wild Coffea species: evidence of a discontinuous distribution. Food Chemistry 91:633—637.

Mazzafera, P., Baumann, T. W., Shimizu, M. M., and Silvarolla, M. B. 2009. Decaf and the steeplechase towards decaffito—the coffee from caffeine-free arabica plants. Tropical Plant Biology 2:63-76.

Nagai, C., Rakotomalala, J. J., and Katahira, R. 2008. Production of a new low-caffeine hybrid coffee and the biochemical mechanism of low caffeine accumulation. Euphytica 164:133—142.

Ogita, S., Uefuji, H., Yamaguchi, Y., Koizumi, N. and Sano, H. 2003. RNA interference: Producing decaffeinated coffee plants. Nature 423: 823.

Silvarolla, M. B., Mazzafera, P. and Fazuoli, L. C. 2004. Plant biochemistry:  A naturally decaffeinated arabica coffee. Nature 429:826.

Photo by Chris Brown (zoonabar) under a Creative Commons license.

Let’s try this again

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On March 15, 2012

In Corporate coffee, Smucker's

Shareholders will again propose that Smucker’s develop a coffee sustainability plan

JM Smucker Co., owner of coffee brands including Folgers, Millstone, Kava, and Café Bustelo, is the fourth largest buyer of coffee in the world. In 2010, they purchased over 250,000 tons of coffee, and only a fraction of a percent was certified in any way. A recent analysis by the Tropical Commodity Coalition notes that the company “does not provide verifiable procurement figures of certified coffees, has no specific goals for a more sustainable coffee sector, and its future commitment is extremely vague.”

Readers will recall that last year two major investors, Trillium Asset Management and Calvert Investments, put forth a shareholder proposal requesting that Smucker’s prepare a sustainability report.  The Smucker’s Board unanimously recommended that shareholders vote against this proposal. Nonetheless, at the August 2011 meeting,  roughly 20% of shareholders voted in favor of the proposal, with another 10% abstaining, for about a third not agreeing with the board*. (You can read the whole story with background here.)

This year, a similar shareholder proposal will be presented. The resolution, filed recently by Trillium Asset Management, requests that Smucker’s, within six months of the annual meeting, develops and publishes a coffee sustainability plan that goes beyond the insipid 2011 “plan.” This proposal will specifically ask that the plan include:

(1) quantitative goals for quantities of certified coffee purchases; (2) a method for evaluating the success of the plan in addressing the challenges of climate change to the Company and the farmers and ecosystems in its coffee supply chain.

American consumers continue to reward Smucker’s. The U.S. retail coffee segment contributed 49% of the total profit for the company in the quarter ending in January 2012; this segment reported a profit margin of 21.7%.

From their nostalgic ads featuring a bygone era, to their honoring of centenarians via Willard Scott, to their antediluvian view of sustainability and transparency, Smucker’s is stuck in the past. Hopefully this proposal will meet with some success at the annual meeting this summer and move Smucker’s into the present day.

*Another interesting proposal has been filed by a different group, asking that Smucker’s follow the Security and Exchange Commissions standard for proxy vote counting. Currently, Smucker’s counts all abstaining votes as votes in favor of management. Abstentions, where shareholders want their vote noted but not counted, are not figured into the SEC  formula. Counting these as in favor of the management seems to clearly be against the wishes of the abstaining voters.

Research: Puerto Rican shade coffee and biodiversity

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On March 11, 2012

In Coffee regions, Research on coffee growing

Shade-grown coffee in Puerto Rico: Opportunities to preserve biodiversity while reinvigorating a struggling agricultural commodity. Borkhataria, Collazo, Groom, and Jordan-Garcia. 2012. Agriculture, Ecosystems, and Environment.

Even though coffee was first planted in Puerto Rico in 1736, we don’t hear much about it. In part, this is because much of the coffee grown there is consumed there. Still, coffee was PR’s major crop in the early 1800s, but hurricanes, high labor costs, low yields and other problems diminished its importance. Government support has been largely responsible for its persistence, and this included recommendations to increase yield by converting to sun coffee in the late 1980s, with any “shade” farms directed to use widely spaced trees and total shade not exceeding 30%. According to agricultural statistics summarized in the first paper noted above, there were 15,144 ha of coffee in PR in 2007 on over 5,600 farms which averaged 20 ha.  Over 69% of this land was characterized as sun coffee.

Authors also surveyed a random sample of 100 coffee farmers (nearly all of which answered the questions regarding shade). A third of the farmers considered their coffee shade coffee, and another 21% said they had both shade and sun coffee. However, when evaluated by the surveyors, the actual number of farms that could be considered traditional or polyculture shade was only 8%. This points out the clear problem of a lack of an agreed-upon definition of “shade”!

Most PR coffee farmers receive some sort of governmental assistance, often in the form of fertilizers. One farmer interviewed said he preferred to grow under shade, but grew a few hectares of coffee in sun in order to have access to incentives. About 70% of the farmers said they’d be willing to plant shade trees if they were encouraged by the government and if shade trees were provided to them.

The authors recommended government practices which would help promote production that protected biodiversity, took advantage of markets that favored sustainable agriculture, and made incentives were more available to farmers wishing to grow shade coffee.

Borkhataria, R., Collazo, J., Groom, M., & Jordan-Garcia, A. (2012). Shade-grown coffee in Puerto Rico: Opportunities to preserve biodiversity while reinvigorating a struggling agricultural commodity Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, 149, 164-170 DOI: 10.1016/j.agee.2010.12.023

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