People have been drinking coffee for centuries. Yet Milwaukee-based entrepreneur Ryan Castelaz believes we haven’t fully understood the iconic bean or realized its full potential.
“What I love most about coffee is its diversity and its ingenuity and its constant evolution,” Castelaz said.
Castelaz is the founder and CEO of Discourse Coffee, which has locations in Milwaukee and Chicago. He’s the author of “The New Art of Coffee: From Morning Cup to Caffeine Cocktail.”
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Castelaz joined WPR’s “The Larry Meiller Show” to share his tips for sourcing beans and brewing better coffee.
The following interview was edited for brevity and clarity.
Larry Meiller: What should you think about when you buy coffee beans?
Ryan Castelaz: If you live in the proximity of a roastery, a local roaster, go directly to the source. Go to a coffee shop that you trust that sells retail coffee and talk to the baristas.
They surely have a lot more information for you than the local grocery store. They almost definitely are going to be able to provide coffee that’s been roasted more recently and is fresher and a more vibrant expression of the product.
If I want a really chocolatey, rich, bittersweet, 90 percent dark chocolate with a little bit of caramel, really rich and bitter and intense and kind of has that potent characteristic to it that sometimes it’s really enjoyable in coffee, I might be looking for a northern Italian roast.
If I decide that I want something a little more caramely and a little more nutty, I might go to something from South or Central America, somewhere like Brazil or El Salvador.
And if I want something that’s fruitier, I might look at a Colombian coffee, an Ethiopian coffee or Panamanian coffee.
LM: Ryan, should you grind your own beans? Or should you buy ground coffee?
RC: You should absolutely grind your own beans. If there’s one thing that you can do to increase the quality of your coffee at home, once you’ve bought the right beans for you, is to grind fresh at the time of brewing.
If you must buy pre-ground, toss it in the freezer. That’s going to slow down that oxidation just a little bit.
LM: What’s an entry-level way to make espresso at home?
RC: Probably the most affordable way to make an espresso-ish coffee at home is going to be an AeroPresso. I actually have a recipe for AeroPresso in my book.
AeroPresso is essentially a concentrated coffee using an AeroPress and espresso. There’s a common misunderstanding that espresso is a type of coffee. It is not. Espresso is a brew method, and it is created by the inclusion of pressure in the brewing environment.
What’s beautiful about an AeroPress is that you are the pressure. You push down on that plunger, and you create a pressurized environment that enables you to grind quite fine and create crema, which is the emulsified oils of coffee that really only reveal themselves when put under pressure at a fine grind.
An AeroPress can be purchased for about $40 or $50 online. Using the AeroPresso home method is going to be the cheapest way to get into home espresso.
