I blogged on this after a customer asked this question this week. She had been told that Good coffee will never need sugar. Read below and tell me what you think....

A great customer of Star Gardentown Cafe - Toowoomba - was told that ‘good coffee does not need sugar’, is this true? I have to say that there is no definite answer to this one. There are times where it is a well defined ‘Yes’ and others where you wouldn’t dream of it. I guess the first question that needs to be answered is - are you putting sugar in your coffee to mask an undesirable flavour? - If this is the case, find somewhere else to buy your coffee, or learn to make it the right way!

So, are you putting sugar into it just mask an undesirable flavour? If so there may be a few reasons. Has that coffee shop that you frequented for a long time one day dropped the ball in terms of the quality of coffee they serve? The biggest mistake is blaming the coffee itself. Rarely will the coffee be bad. There is a roaster somewhere that put alot of love into that blend and somewhere along the line, a barista or staff member has dropped the proverbial ball and ruined what might have been great.

Take Di Bella coffee for example. They have just taken great honors in Australia’s Golden Bean awards for 2009, yet, one of my local cafes makes their coffee taste like the worst coffee ever made! The poor roaster has no control when he/she sells the beans, yet would go out of business if they refused to supply any cafe that didn’t do them justice. The making of the coffee in your local cafe is only the small final step in a much larger history in your cups life. The process - Grown, picked, fermented, sorted, bagged, shipped, roasted, blended, shipped to the cafe, ground, extracted and drank, - is lengthy enough that somewhere along the line something can foul the end result. You will find that in the roasting process, no faults should be detected and then passed on to the consumer. A good roaster will never roast a sub-standard green bean and pass it onto their customers. Likewise, a good roaster will frequently ‘cup’ their coffee to ensure that the end result in their roast is what they expected.

So what can a barista/cafe stuff up? - Heaps - There is literally tons of ways to ruin a good bean in the final stages of making a coffee.

* Is the whole bean stale? Does your cafe buy too much or not sell enough. Is it sitting on the shelf for way too long, it is exposed to excess amounts of air?
* Once ground is it getting used straight away? Think about it - Once ground, there is A LOT more surface area for air to contact and start the deterioration. A good barista will grind to order, giving you the freshest tasting cup.
* When was the espresso machine cleaned last? This would have to be the biggest fault in why your coffee is bitter, and hence why you need to sweeten it with sugar! Cleaning with chemical over night is essential (domestic machines don’t need this frequency), back flushing the system hourly if not more and cleaning up as mess (washing out equipment) is made can alter the flavour of the cup. A messy machine will kill your coffee.
* How long did the extracted shot sit around until it got drank/milk poured into it? Time kills as well. and,
* How long was the actual extraction of coffee? Did the barista really know what they were doing when they started making your drink?

So these things - plus a whole lot more - can ruin you cup of Joe in a cafe but espresso coffees are only one way of making a good cup. What other factors can make you add sugar in the home or through other processes like siphons/plungers etc?….

‘Good coffee ‘ is a wonderfully diverse medium that knows no limitations. Major factors like what extraction method - Espresso, siphon, plunger, pour over etc - will usually dictate what sort of origins of coffee are used in the process. Different countries, broken down into regions and further into farms will produce unique flavour profiles somewhat like wines. Some origins may produce naturally sweet flavours, some dry. Others will be sour and yet still some can be combinations. An African coffee can be really sweet (Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, Kenyan AA) and not need any sugar as they have distinct floral and fruit nuances. In saying that though, an African coffee might give you an intense explosion of these flavours with just a small amount of sugar added. Extract an African coffee through an espresso machine and you will draw out a lot of the beans acidity making it tart on the tongue. Extract the same bean through a siphon or pour over and all that ‘pop’ of acidity will be mellowed and almost non existent, giving you great floral nuances as the beverage cools down.

So, to answer Yes, to the question posed, some coffee’s like African coffee’s can be good with a bit of sugar. Just like a good chef always seasons food with salt and pepper to draw out natural flavours, a little sugar can increase the pop of flavour on your tongue when drinking coffee. A good chef will adjust the seasoning to sit the dish, adding more at the table before even tasting can tip it over the scale and start to ruin the flavour. If you are in a good coffee shop, trust your barista and try the coffee first, they might know that the blend they are using is great as it is, that milk enhances the flavour and that sugar will drown out the delicate nuances that await your palate Being that you picked a good coffee shop as well, chances are that the same barista loves what he does and he cleans his machine and knows what he is doing. Don’t pass judgment on a coffee before you taste it, sip it without added sugar first and then adjust accordingly.

If you happen to be a extra tall, extra caramel, half shot coffee drinker, than chances are sipping on an espresso shot will taste awful. Intensity of flavour is obviously going to alter your preference to the final cup you drink. A good barista will know if his/her blend goes better in milk based drinks compared to straight shots. We at Star Gardentown Cafe try to offer alternatives for espresso drinkers. We know that we designed our blend for the 80% of our customers that drink milk based beverages. Therefore, we offer single origins and blended alternatives for the coffee geeks drinking it strong and black.

In the end it comes down to personal preference. The biggest advice we can give though, is that if you are getting a coffee that requires more than one sugar, either find another another shop or learn to cut down on your sugar intake. Who knows, you might enjoy the flavours that you are masking (and cull your dentist bills). So, does good coffee need sugar? - Yes if you want a small amount to help draw out natural flavours, - no, if you are just using it to mask terrible coffee.