How do you teach a budding barista the skill of making the definitive, perfect espresso? Can such a pinnacle of attainment be demonstrated in the classroom, or is it a dark intuitive art honed after years of experience?
Instaurator is the former chairman of the Australian Coffee and Tea Association, established national guidelines for accredited barista training and is founder and CEO of Michel’s Espresso, so it’s fair to assume that he knows a thing or two about the pursuit of coffee excellence.
‘The Espresso Quest’ is a 200-plus page textbook of the simple art of making a perfect espresso. Two hundred pages of densely worded text that chronicles Instaurator’s quest for “God in my cup” – which, by his own reckoning, is an occasion that he can count on the fingers of one hand.
The subject matter is shown from the perceptive of Taste, the Grower, the Roaster, and the Barista and also outlines a history of coffee drinking – and our changing palate - in Australia as told from the personal perspective of someone based in the heart of the industry.
The author’s perspective is interesting, it’s knowledgeable and it’s passionate, but there’s nothing prescriptive about it. Those wanting the definitive how-to will be left wanting. Reading it, I felt frustrated: I thought I knew how to make a good coffee, but the lengths to which one could go for the experience made me feel inadequate. Should I store my beans in the fridge, or at an even 24 degrees? How freshly roasted should the beans be? How much coffee to put in the holder and how firmly tamped down should it be? Would my dinky domestic espresso machine be even considered worthy of the challenge?
In the end, it didn’t reassure me at all, just left me feeling that once again, I had been undermined by the all pervading snobbery which so besets coffee preparation. It’s worse than wine appreciation.
Did someone say wanker? Shame about that.