Wrong coffee grinder will leave a bad taste

It was surprising to see a blade grinder distinctly misrepresented as a coffee grinder on the shelf of a popular chain store recently.

After being attracted by the price, a closer look revealed this subterfuge.

Intended or not, offering a blade grinder as a coffee grinder is mislabelling at best and bordering on downright dishonesty.

Real coffee grinders use burrs or grinding wheels as compared to general purpose blade grinders.

The latter are useful in the kitchen perhaps but when used for coffee, the particles are pulverised into an inconsistent shale mass with poor uniformity, some too fine and others too coarse.

This can have a significantly negative effect on the taste of your coffee.

Coffee taste is proportionate to the percentage of total dissolvable solids (TDS) that your brewing system is able to extract.

The restaurant-style espresso machines offer superb extraction levels and are able to extract higher percentages than most other brewing systems.

The better quality stove-top and automatic bean-to-cup machines come in a close second.

Tread carefully, however, before deciding to select a machine on price alone.

Many of the cheaper options are unlikely to extract flavour anywhere near as much as you are expecting.

The well-known Afrikaans expression, “goedkoop is duurkoop” certainly applies to coffee machines.

Caveat Emptor, Latin for “let the buyer beware,” – certainly applies.

Alan Hawkins is the chief roaster and founder of the East London Coffee Co – www.elcoffee.co.za.

Contact: sales@elcoffee.co.za