I just received my first shipment of Terroir coffees today. I decided it was high time I try this roaster, since they evidently do things differently then most. (Very light roasts, vacuum-packed greens, mostly single origins, etc.)

Terroir espressos are typically recommended at low doses and low temperatures. My question is: what is the specific rationale behind this? Contrast this with Barefoot -- they also roast very light and offer bright single origin espressos. Yet they suggest the opposite: high doses and high temperatures.

Is this 180 degree difference in brewing parameters just due to barista/taster preference at these roasters? Or are they doing something significantly different with the coffee itself? Roasting curves, green coffee selection, etc.

Perhaps it helps to think of temperature and dose as having inverse effects on the brew. (Higher temperature = higher extraction, but higher dose = lower extraction). Thus you can get a high extraction percentage either with high temp/high dose or low temp/low dose. The latter option gives you more smooth "middle" flavors and the former gives you more aggressive flavors. (I think I'm starting to paraphrase Jim Schulman at this point.)

Now, if Terroir's coffees are extremely clean, fresh, and carefully roasted as they are reputed to be, shouldn't that give us more room to "push" the coffee, i.e. high temperatures would extract many desirable solubles and very few defective flavors? Or this just "too much of a good thing" which most people experience as sour?

I'm not sure where they stand now. At one time, Terroir recommended very low shot temperatures, around 190F, which is not easily achieved in most espresso machines. If you can get there, even the extraction of acids is diminished, and you get a mild shot. The conventional wisdom, if you are playing with the normal shot range of 195F to 205F, is to go hot for light roasts, in order to get more of the harder to extract roast-bitters and caramels to balance the acidity. This is why Barefoot recommends hot.

High doses emphasize both acids and bitters at the expense of the middle flavors (the dessert ones: sweetness, caramels, chocolates, vanilla, etc), whereas lower doses do the opposite. Dose recommendations should be based on the nature of the coffee. A recommended high dose implies a rather sweet coffee, a lower dose, one where the acids and bitters are more dominant. However, subjective and local factors like personal taste and the machine one is using play a larger role in dose than in temperature. So while temperature recommendations should be taken literally, 204F means 204F; dose recommendations should be based on the range of doses workable on your machine and basket.

another_jim wrote:...So while temperature recommendations should be taken literally, 204F means 204F; dose recommendations should be based on the range of doses workable on your machine and basket.

Temperature recommendations may also be taken with a grain of salt. For a given coffee on a plethora of machines, what does 201°F actually mean? The start, average or end temperature An HX is going to start high, a DB probably low and a saturated group dead on.

The recommender may favor bitter over sweet.

What's important is to have done enough experimenting with one's kit to know how obtain the most enjoyable shot by manipulation of the parameters.

another_jim wrote:So while temperature recommendations should be taken literally, 204F means 204F; dose recommendations should be based on the range of doses workable on your machine and basket.

I was under the impression that target temperature is relative to dose?

Wow, Jim. Thank you for that very excellent and succinct summary on temp/dose theory. That's the clearest I've ever heard this put.

Have you thought to ask them why?