Brewing your Cultured Coffee
There is no one single best technique for brewing coffee! The method you choose should just be based on your personal preferences and feelings. A comforting mug of coffee for breakfast, a nice afternoon cappuccino or a fancy pour-over? Well, you can do it all with Cultured Coffee, and it will always result in an incredible experience.
Little tips:
Need to gear up? Here are some of the most popular brewing devices to best enjoy your cup of Cultured Coffee: Chemex; Aeropress; V60
On the back of our pack we included a nice little guide so you always know the best amount of coffee, water, and brewing time for whichever technique you choose.
Ground vs. whole bean Cultured Coffee - you will get the choice!
You will get the choice after the end of the campaign whether you want your Cultured Coffee ground or whole bean. No worries! That being said, to enjoy it to its fullest we do recommend that you grind your own beans just before brewing.
The whole point of grinding coffee is to get the delicious flavor components and oils trapped within the bean into your cup by extracting them with hot water. These fragile flavor components are pretty sensitive to oxygen and moisture, and it's best to only expose them through grinding just before brewing. Another advantage to grinding your own beans is that you get to choose and adapt your grind size to the brewing method you are using.
If you want to learn more about grinding, have a look at this short New York Times article. If you want to invest in a grinder, we recommend this manual one (the Hario ceramic mill) or this electric one (the Baratza encore).
Cultured Coffee vs. Kopi Luwak
Kopi luwak (or civet coffee), refers to a very specific coffee that is eaten by a small animal in Indonesia, partially fermented in its digestive tract, defecated, washed, and roasted. Yes, it’s pretty gross but has become the most expensive coffee in the world at up to $2000 per pound.
This gold rush towards kopi luwak has had the consequence that most of the production comes from caged animals forced fed mediocre coffee beans. While the fermentation process has been shown to reduce bitterness (Marcone, 2004), overall the great majority of kopi luwak is, let’s say it, very bad coffee.
Afineur Cultured Coffee goes well beyond kopi luwak. By controlling and fine-tuning the fermentations which are done in clean and safe bioreactors we are able to uncover unique exceptional flavor landscapes that go well beyond anything kopi luwak can offer. An incredible cup and a truly high-end experience for a fraction of the price.
How do I learn more about coffee?
This is an easy one. We can't recommend enough James Hoffmann's new book The World Atlas of Coffee: From Beans to Brewing - Coffees Explored, Explained and Enjoyed. You will discover everything from the world's most vibrant coffee-growing regions, to extensive step-by-step brewing tutorials. Happy readings!
Our fantastic advisors:
And our amazing friends and partners:
Risks and challenges
Forecasting Risk
If all goes well during the campaign, we'll finish up with a gigaton of Cultured Coffee in order ;) Of course we're trying our hardest to predict our future demand and plan accordingly, but it's far from an exact science. While we’ve set up a robust network of awesome partners to help us meet whatever demand we will face, our forecasting capabilities aren't the same as what you might expect from a big company.
We've worked hard to understand the production and fulfilment of Cultured Coffee for what will (hopefully!) be a successful campaign. We've tried to think of everything from sourcing the best beans all the way to fermenting, roasting and getting fresh bags to your door steps. But despite our best efforts, we're sure to run into some roadblocks. We'll deal with them the way we always do: lots of Trello boards, tons of emails and phone calls and a bunch of hard work. We're confident that we've set ourselves reasonable goals and have laid the foundation for something really great.
Food regulation
We’re taking food safety and regulations very seriously. We’ve been actively engaging with FDA to discuss our process and the different innovations we are bringing to the coffee world. We anticipate the regulatory path to commercialization to be straightforward and quick. We only work with safe, natural, characterized and non-genetically modified microorganisms for our fermentations. Moreover, the beans are sterilized during roasting. During production we will comply with the strictest manufacturing guidelines to bring you the best product. We don’t anticipate any changes in the food regulation to affect the project, but it is always a possibility, which could delay the shipping if we have to get the process approved.
Acts of Nature (and of New Yorkers)
We're based in Brooklyn. That means a major hurricane is always a possibility. Or a very early and harsh winter. Or we could have a massive spur-of-the-moment crepe party involving awesome cultured coffee, local craft beers, cheeses, and many people passionate about making better more sustainable food. Whatever happens, we'll get through it together. We promise.
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