I once had and elderly couple come in to buy beans to make turkish coffee with, they asked to see a few beans and proceeded to eat them whole bean infront of my eyes. I knew it was my duty as a good barista to do the same (not as strong as I expected). They declared the darker columbian was the best for the brew method. As a budding turkish coffee enthusiast I brewed each roast as a turkish coffee and sampled them. They were absolutley right, I still drink it as a turkish coffee to this day. This is my favourite customer experience to date.
The most upsetting coffee conversation I had was with a colleague who managed to somehow merge all of the types of "strength" into one. He knew that a espresso is "stronger" than filter, so he wanted all of his coffee to come out of espresso machine, even though he wanted a full mug, which meant he made disgusting 300 ml lungos from a single dose. He equated bitterness with caffeine, so he went for the darkest most bitter coffees. So in the end he made coffee that was incredibly weak, but when he would take a sip he would wince and shudder from the bitterness and go "YEAH, that's some STRONG cup! That's how I like it!"
I have a friend who acts like that. And my entire american relatives who are happy when they don't get the standard american "see-through" coffee served...
my mom equates strong with bitter also. she likes some terrible coffee because she can "taste" it. (in her case, partly i think it's aging taste buds and losing some of them so to speak. coffee and ales i notice she goes for bitter/strong over nuanced and the subtle things taste like nothing to her.)
Back when I was young and ignorant, and my only exposure to coffee was the communal coffee pot on midnight shifts, that's exactly what my mindset was. It wasn't until I bought a French press about 6 or 7 years ago that I started learning how to properly brew coffee or even what actually good coffee tasted like.
I realized, half-way through, that I grew up with that extraction-based concept of strength, but it was applied to brewing tea. The Slavic tradition was to brew an overly-extracted tea base (заварка), and then each person would dilute their own cup with freshly boiled water to their preferred strength level. Cool to know it applies similarly to coffee!
Well that's neat, a culture which almost should be entering coffee culture, as mokapot brewed overextracted and diluted by the consumer to prefference I like that thought
@@evev5358 ha, here i am from the states thinking it's wild that that's the norm - to start with a concentrate. what's en vogue here now is "the perfect cup" of whatever you're making; generally with someone who supposedly knows what they're doing to "show others what it's supposed to taste like," as opposed to letting everyone do what they like. i like that concept of "zavarka," im going to have to look into it more. ive been playing on opening a coffee shop with the focus being that "everyone is allowed to enjoy what they enjoy" with no pretension involved; wild to know this is such an old concept elsewhere in the world. i have some research to do!
James is dedicated to his cause, laughs at himself and keeps smiling through that "it's disgusting" and then questions his motivation, reasoning and sanity.
I work at what I imagine is the worst coffee roastery in the world, and my boss was talking this afternoon about the (incredibly sour) coffee he made this morning. He and a coworker agreed that it was "strong." Your videos help keep me sane
@@ChickengoesBOK in that case I think it was grind size/dose, just not enough water to fully extract the amount of coffee he put in. But there's also zero quality control and the other production roaster puts out some incredibly scorched and uneven stuff, which when brewed tastes sour, bitter, and burnt. They make fun of me for weighing the dose when I make coffee, and thought my suggestion of a cupping table was silly.
@@Sam-lr9oi bro, forget them. You measure that for dose and you brew your coffee with the utmost excellence. Also any respectable roaster has a cupping lab for quality control and to make sure they’re getting their money’s worth. I hope you end up at a roaster who respects your care and skill for coffee one day man
@@ChickengoesBOK appreciate the kind words. What I have gotten there at least is a passion for coffee and the opportunity to learn on decent equipment, so I'll take that.
_"I'm gonna have to taste it, aren't I?"_ James, your dedication to your viewers is unparalleled! Thank you for giving me more and better words for describing why and how I hate coffee (despite drinking it every day), and for giving me the hope that I may someday be offered a cup I would be willing to try without cream and sugar!
Get a popcorn popper and some green beans and you will after a short time be able to roast the type of bean to the exact taste you like, if you need cream and sugar you will most likely enjoy a central/south american bean.
I'm a robot programmed to keep Fred Gordon Herbert's memory alive. My knowledge of goes as far as knowing a : *_,,I had coffee with McCauley... HALF AN HOUR AGO!!!"_* from the . Hope this bit of information was useful, have a great day!
James, watching you decide that you had to taste the dehydrated coffee sludge was the best part of this video. Your face anticipating the flavors and then experiencing them just killed me. Thanks for sharing this. Your reasoned explanation about the proper usage the word strength is how I have felt intuitively. Keep it up!
Apologies in advance for pedantry: As these "strong" coffees are dark roasts they grind more easily (as they are more brittle and easier and/or faster to get finer grinds).
I'm always here for the self imposed culinary torture James! Brings a smile to my heart and makes me thankful I never have to risk to suffer the same, curiosity-inflicted fate 🙏
For me, strength correlates strictly with the psycho-physiological feelings you get after the "dose". So it's basically caffeine content, though the rush you get might vary with the sugar/fat/water content in the cup. I refer to the bitterness as " intensity " and to the content of coffee vs water as "concentration".
Interestingly, there's other compounds in coffee that contribute to the stimulant effects. Notably, theobromine, but as with many plant based entheogenics, there's likely confounding impacts from the various flavor compounds as well.
honestly same. if someone "wants to buy the strongest cup of coffee", you bet that what they want is 1st and foremost waking up for like 50 hours straight or something like that, and maybe 2nd for taste, if they also like dark chocolate. I never equate it to what strength should mean, although his explanation of what the term should mean makes sense, it feels less practical in real life. widely held misconceptions will no longer be misconceptions, because in language, the masses have the most power in defining what something means.
@@theKashConnoisseur Theobromine and caffeine are not friends, from a sensation perspective. Very conflicting. Caffeine is stimulating, theobromine is almost psychedelic. Actually the reason I'm slowly phasing coffee out of my diet, even though I adore it.
Interesting analysis. When you said that the dehydrated espresso was like marmite or vegemite, the home-cook part of me was thinking that it could have some application to boost the savoury flavours of a dish. Maybe drop a few flakes into a chilli/spag bol or something like that.
I actually keep some Medaglia D'Oro instant espresso in the kitchen specifically for this purpose!! It's amazing in chili, any kind of red sauce you wanna give some depth to, and any meat dish you wanna cook "low and slow".
Among the many reasons I love James is his integrity and consideration. There’s no productive purpose to trashing a small business to be able to make this point. James is a thoughtful guy and he accommodated that. I can’t say how much I respect that about him.
I agree it didn't matter what brand it was, with the clout James has in the coffee world, it would have pretty much killed the brand if he did. It is quite respectful of him to take that level of care in his videos.
As a chemist, thank you. I find the way strength is described with regard to roast level incredibly frustrating and it was after discovering your channel (thanks to your Tom Scott mashup) that I found satisfaction. Great work!
@@hafidzgi yeah I wouldn't have found this channel to watch otherwise. It turns out that I have watched his French Press video ages ago, but was unaware
Roast level can affect alot of things altering and outright removing certain volatile compounds which are in coffee but coincidentally one thing that roasting doesn't really do at all is affect caffeine levels as its not very volatile thing. but my question is would lets say if you started with the same amount of beans before roasting then extracted them heavy roasted vs very light roasted would caffeine be available to be extracted easily from the heavy roast rather than light roast where there are more things left that may hinder the caffeine release ? i would think there would be a measurable difference no in accessibility of the caffeine ?
This is a very nice video! It puts to words a concept I feel I had been working around for awhile - I don't like bitter coffee, but I love very strong flavors.
It is, indeed, confusing and sightly frustrating. I was instinctively attached to the idea of bitterness and conceptually attached to the idea of caffeine content. You managed to take down both in a very clear way, and the alcohol percentage analogy was crystal clear. Thank you! 👏🏻👏🏻
The moment James Hoffman started cracking the dehydrated coffee and in my mind I am like "is he going to eat it?" YESSSSS! Thank you James, you never disappoint in your videos!
Customer: give me your strongest cup James Hoffman: well, let me tell you about strength… (14:27 minutes later) Customer: thanks, give me the boldest cup you’ve got
"You don't know what you ask, customer. My strongest cups will kill a dragon let alone a man. You need a seller that sells weaker cups, because my cups are too strong."
Ahhhhhhhhh. The strength is bad enough but the one or two times I had a customer ask for a "bold" coffee I nearly had an aneurysm. Like at least strength refers to actual objective descriptors, but what the fuck is bold supposed to mean?
@@andershaldorsen3548 I would think that's pretty obvious, it's describing the intensity of the flavor experience. This might not help you choose, since you probably have more than one coffee (of very different roast levels) that could produce intense flavors. The request is underspecified, but that's why they asked a barista who can just make the rest of the assumptions for you. If a customer actually knew exactly what they wanted, they get a lot less benefit from asking a human with expertise about it.
@@MobiusHorizons intensity is very subjective though. A bitter dark coffee and an acidic light coffee could both be described as "intense," so judging intensity is completely variable. My cafe didn't even have any dark coffee, just a medium blend and a rotating single origin that was usually light roasted, and neither were really that intense anyway. I would typically assume "bold" means "burnt," so by that standard we didn't have any coffee like that. My next best guess would be that bold refers to strength, as described in the video, but we used about the same ratio for all of our coffees in order to extract it about the same and extract it well, meaning that none are stronger than the other. Bold is really just the worst way a person can describe a coffee to a coffee nerd, and at a cafe for coffee nerds, it's the most frustrating request because of the ambiguity of what it means combined with the high probability that we don't have what they're looking for
I argue there is also a 5th meaning when people talk about, “coffee strength.” Working in a gas station, I’ve had plenty of people ask me which of our coffee selections are, “the strongest,” when asking about how it will affect their stomachs/digestive tracts… I think that example gives enough detail as to what they mean…
@@AveragePicker caffeine pills don't make me need to poop, and I used to rely on those before I got diagnosed and properly medicated for ADHD. Energy drinks didn't/don't make me need to poop either, unlike coffee. Edit: I am not saying caffeine can't make people need to defecate, just that it isn't why coffee is so effective at it.
It's funny because as a coffee nerd, I'm actually looking into reducing my caffeine consumption. Can't wait on that decaf video. There's something to be said about enjoying coffee without the "drug" part, e.g. cupping 6 coffees without having to worry about what time of day it is or risking feeling sick afterwards.
I love the taste of coffee and can drink it all day everyday. I started buying decaf for my after morning coffees to reduce my caffeine consumption and the jitters/heart pain. Definitely recommend for anyone like me who can’t stand not having the taste of coffee!
@@aves1099 Agreed! I bought some decaf to have a cup with dinner because coffee with a good meal is a joyous experience but I want to be able to sleep easily still.
Holy crap I have this debate on a nearly daily basis with my coworker who has Death Wish swag all over his cubicle. You’re doing the lords work here James.
@@masterofallgoons yeah I’m really not the evangelist. I just have to listen to regurgitated ad copy while he pops k cups into his brewer and mocks whatever light roast I’m doing in my aeropress. I’m not saying COVID was a good thing. But it had its upsides.
@@theStumblinbear Tell me your secrets because I have gotten 5 bags, 2 have tastes like unwashed gym socks and the other 3 have tasted like rancid oil.
James is in a unique position, influencing the vocabulary of coffee enthusiasts around the world. We can just be thankful he does it with such caution, tact, and patience.
When you picked up the dried "instant coffee" piece, I immediately yelled out "TASTE IT! TASTE IT!" and I knew you would and laughed when you said "i'm gonna have to taste it, aren't i?" HAHA love u always James for doing these things
Thank you. This is one of the most frequently misunderstood things about our favourite beverage, especially here in Brazil where most people drink "strong" (i.e. dense) filtered coffee with a lot of sugar.
When referring to psychoactive substances, I thought it was recognized that strength always meant concentration of the active molecule(s). So there should indeed be a "World's Strongest Coffee" in terms of caffeine density.
Well as a biochemist it's not exactly the case. There is a parameter which is called dissociation constant. This is the amount of said substance needed to bind to 50% of the relevant receptors. This relates to the affinity of it all. So substances with very high kd, and thus very low affinity, need a whole lot of molecules to be able to bind. This is why they say drugs like fentanyl are way stronger and active at a lower concentrations
@@RustlessPotato Right, but we're not talking about a range of psychoactive substances with varying potencies. For the vast majority of coffee drinkers, the sought after active compound is caffeine, which should be about the same level of receptor binding affinity regardless of source. So to determine strength, we can simply look at caffeine concentrations. Let's use your fentanyl as an analogy. A prescription preparation that releases a lower concentration of fentanyl is weaker, while a preparation that releases a higher concentration of fentanyl is stronger. Because we are only concerned with the single active chemical, we don't have to worry about the binding affinity of codeine since there isn't any in our preparation. In the same way, since the primary chemical we are concerned with is caffeine, we don't need to be concerned with the binding affinity of methamphetamine. Make sense?
@@theKashConnoisseur yes, you're absolutely correct. I misinterpreted the original comment when I replied. Thanks for the correction. Have a nice day !
We used to get chocolate covered coffee beans in our MREs in the Marines. Everyone else was obsessed with skittles and M&Ms. But those little coffee beans were like magic on late night watches.
@@scottlawless8854 Yeah, I haven't seen them anywhere. I even considered building my own candy panner Kitchen Aid attachment to make my own. Thanks BTW, I had forgotten the name!
This was a great explanation of what “strength” means. I drank that robusta, 200% caffeine, dark roast coffee. Great marketing gimmick, but not great coffee. I prefer dark roast coffee, and I like a stronger brew. I think that may have to do with my Navy days where by the time one of those huge coffee makers was down to the bottom of the pot, the sludge drawn from it probably tasted like the dehydrated stuff James had. I’ve been drinking coffee since I was 7, and having consumed it around the world, I think my favorite is the coffee I had in Brazil. It’s strong, but flavorful.
The anti dark roast contignent is amazingly insufferable, like they know The One True Way to drink coffee and everything else is morally evil. They're freaking vegans about it. (Putting good light roast beans into good full fat milk is surely a morally repugnant waste of both the milk and the coffee, but French press some good dark beans, pour the coffee into a bunch of full fat milk, and the resulting drink is like hot chocolate, but not, or like liquid panna cotta. It's amazingly smooth and tastes way more rich than how much fat there actually is in the cup)
Brazilian coffee has great balance, especially if you like darker roasts. The environment produces beans that tend to be less acidic and fruitier to begin with, so they remain well rounded even when roasted dark, letting you taste all aspects without any being overpowering. Brazilian coffees are definitely my favourites as well.
Thanks for teaching me about strength, it all makes sense now. I prefer a fruity light roasted arabica coffee from an espresso machine but I used to look for the highest number of "strength" to determine which coffee I bought. I have more shots in a long black so I'm having a stronger coffee than just about everyone because of the actual amount of coffee in my cup, thanks for clarifying.
The thing that bugs me the most with “strength” meaning caffeine is that it’s so ridiculously variable. I’m pretty caffeine-sensitive so I need to find low-caffeine brewing methods. Cold brew is perfect at extracting *all* the caffeine (while avoiding the tasty chemicals I’m actually here for), and even decaf coffee usually has more caffeine than I can handle when done as cold brew. Meanwhile, espresso is the opposite - amazing extraction of flavor compounds but much less caffeine overall (relative to input dose and flavor extraction, anyway, not relative to output volume), but because the flavor is “strong” people assume it’ll also be highly-caffeinated. I also feel like most talk about “strength” (in any food or drink) is really more about “how unpleasant is this” i.e. how “manly” you have to be to tolerate it.
Well said! Maybe James can address this: I've heard for decades that there is SOOOO much more caffeine in espresso than a filter brew. Coming from a science and engineering background, I assumed they are referring to the caffeine concentration, not the total number of milligrams consumed. But my guess is that many people think a shot of espresso has more milligrams of caffeine than an 8 ounce (yes, I'm American) cup of coffee.
@@Acceleronics Yeah, 8 ounces of espresso has more caffeine than 8 ounces of drip, but most people aren't drinking 8 ounces of espresso! Getting good numbers is difficult because everything's so variable but my understanding is that espresso has around half as much caffeine *per serving* (e.g. extracted from a typical 15-gram dose) than something with a longer brew time (such as French press), and drip is somewhere in the middle. It's all about how long the water is in contact with the coffee itself, which is also the fundamental basis of how the Swiss Water Process decaffeination method works.
@@Acceleronics a typical 8oz cup of drip if brewed in pour over fashion at a 1:16 ratio which is standard for drip and pour over recipes, would mean you're using about 14grams of coffee grounds for the 8oz cup. A standard modern "shot" of espresso which would be considered a double shot relative to espresso from decades ago would use 18-20grams of coffee. If they both extract caffeine well then the shot would have more caffeine since it used more ground coffee.
@@henriliebenberg6150 It's not just about the amount of coffee in, though, it's about the efficiency of the caffeine extraction during the process. Water is in contact with espresso grounds for *way* less time than with drip. Dose size does vary considerably but a 20% larger dose for an 18g espresso shot vs. a 15g drip coffee might not counterbalance the longer extraction time of the drip coffee. Also, a lot of espresso is still a 15g dose (which is what used to be a "double" compared to the classic 7-8g dose).
Perhaps people subliminally do consider coffee more classed as a drug, being a conduit for caffeine (rightfully so imo) but compare that to how you might respond if someone said a cocktail was “strong” or a beer was “strong”, what is your impulse about what they are referring to? There is some overlap with that idea of unpleasantness but I think that is a random correlation because the drug, alcohol, is inherently unpleasant. If you take another example like a can of dip being strong or a joint being strong it seems to refer to the strength of intoxicant.
It reminds me of some beer packaging where they not only display the % of alcohol but also the IBU for bitterness and EBC for color (I think it's this one for color). Im pretty sur that there are other units used also. But it's great to see this level of transparency
Hey James! I just wanted to say I _mostly_ whole-heartedly agree with what you're saying, especially about how confusing it is with strength being used in so many different ways, however, I do have one thing to point out. In your video when talking about alcohol strengths, you mentioned that they measure the *percentage of ethanol*, however when measuring the strength of coffee you're measuring *dissolved coffee solids* - this comparison would actually be more akin to measuring the total amount of malt or grapes dissolved into a glass of beer or wine, a measure of caffeine percentage would be the most accurate 1:1 comparison, however, this would be much harder to measure I'm sure. On another note, I've worked as a barista for a long time and this has always frustrated me lol. I sometimes mention to people that darkness of roast is not really a correlation to how much caffeine is in a cup, but people get really annoyed and think if it's not bitter then you must be giving them less coffee or something. - "This tastes milky" - "well, you did order a latte" - "but I like my coffee strong"... It has the same amount of caffeine as the coffee you usually get and it doesn't taste shit and bitter! Enjoy it!
i had so many people come into various shops & say "i've heard lighter roasted coffee has more caffeine. is that true?" & i always told them "well it's a negligible difference." if you're after caffeine, there's way stronger avenues to that. but hey, if people have a sense of nostalgia or familiarity with darkly roasted coffee - let them enjoy it. light roast natural in a chemex ain't even gonna taste like "coffee" to them - especially if they add stuff to it. also, the roast can hide the lack quality in a lot of beans that a.) is a big way darker roasters can save money - buying less quality beans & b.) can be a bit of help if you already invest in a lot that you're somehow stuck with & want to at least get it to the point where you begin tasting the roast & not the beans. & finally, some coffees like sumatrans can compliment a slightly darker roast than like an ethiopia.
In the past, (youth) we used the term of strength as a measure of how much instant granules were added to how much hot water. For example: 2 tablespoons of coffee crystals to 4 ounces of water was a very "strong" cup. Consequently, 1 teaspoon added to 8 ounces hot water produced a "weak" cup. I think a similar comparison to tea. The more tea and longer steeps make a "stronger" cup. Sorry for the inexact measurements here, never weighed the grams of each in those days. Thanks for the clarification. A modern analogy is the misuse of the phrase "hang up the phone" which is meaningless now.
As someone who is very interested in learning more about coffee and brewing, this is a very useful and informative video. Thank you for clarifying and setting a more definitive definition for coffee strength
This is a frequent “argument” I have with my dad. He insists that he likes strong coffee, when he really means bitter. He likes a darker roast. But because the “Intensity scales” on coffee products (pods, grounds, beans) often call that strong, it’s what sticks. However, I also have been using strong “incorrectly”. I would have used strong to describe a coffee with a “higher saturation” of flavour. You can have a mildly fruity coffee, or one with a strong fruit flavour. I suppose for clarity, it’s better to use a different modifier for the “strength” of flavour!
@@samneibauer4241 Im convinced its because they subconsciously associate bitterness with higher caffeine content. Like how people eventually grow to love the burn of high alcohol content. Its essentially flavor masochism
@@skeetsmcgrew3282 ah yes, I wonder if there's a term for this type of masculinity, when you try and seem tough by subjecting yourself to pain, often in a fairly toxic way
@@samneibauer4241 Of all the sins to be laid at the feet of toxic masculinity, I'm not sure why flavour masochism or lust for perceived concentration is it. They aren't proving anything to anyone. Once the lid goes on those adult sippy-cups nobody knows or cares what's inside. It could be a Turkish grind hydrated to the level of a non-Newtonian fluid that you could walk on, or it could be warm double cream with caramel syrup & chocolate sprinkles.
I was just explaining to a friend recently about the difference between strength and extraction level, and I feel validated by this video. Perhaps it would be good to make another video explaining why over- or under-extracted coffee tastes bad. It seems on the surface that percent extraction should be preferential just like percent strength, but this is of course not the case, as we have sour, vegetal under-extraction and harsh, burnt-tasting over-extraction.
Must say I love absolutely everything about this channel! Mr Hoffman sure makes it very interesting and his voice contributes to it. Easy to follow and to understand. Not a huge coffeelover but love this channel! Many thanks to You Sir!
The only person I know of that is able to say "that's nice, but your wrong" in a considerate and articulate way. As usual James another quality information filled upload that the mere mortals of the world like myself can understand and get my head around
A more precise word for what James is calling in the second half of the video Strength, would be Concentration: "The concentration of a solution is a measure of the amount of solute that has been dissolved in a given amount of solvent or solution."
Given that all refractometers measure the speed of light through a liquid, it should in theory be possible to convert any refractometer reading in Brix or degrees Plato to coffee extraction. The difference is basically just look-up table and a bit of math. A cursory web search doesn't bring up any way to convert, but it should in theory be possible. Update: I've found a rough conversion formula TDS = Brix * 0.85.
This video shows James at his most coffee-nerdiest. With grins and giggles to boot. This is why we come to you, James! I discovered 'Kicking Mule' a couple years back, but due to hypertension, never imbibed. Recently, I was rather astonished to find that it's now being sold at my local Target ( _Target,_ people!), so I'm assuming Target is trying to get all hip by delving into the more "specialized coffee" scene. Weirdly. Of course, it was 3x the price of any other type they sell, so there's that. Do hipsters _want_ to pay 3x more for their coffee? Thank you James, your insight is always so incredibly delightful!
You bring a great deal of clarity to teasing out what is so casually alleged about our favorite brews. You are a STRONG coffee aficionado! Without being "officious."
Great Video! But...I must disagree with the comparison to alcoholic beverages, since alcohol% (strength) is the concentration of a single (psychoactive, like caffeine) compound (ethanol) while James´ definition of coffee strength is the concentration of all compounds extracted from the coffee. If we take beer for example, yes, it might contain 5% alcohol, but it also contains around 3-5% of various other compounds such as organic acids, dextrins (carbs) and essential oils, all things that have been extracted into solution or been catalyzed or metabolized by yeast, but we wouldn´t include that in the context of the "strength" of the beer. Nobody says that the strength of this beer is 10%, but that is including everything in solution! Therefore it would be better to compare the concentration of caffeine in coffee as strength to the concentration of alcohol in alcoholic beverages, basically singling out the concentration of one specific compound and comparing that.
This just reminds me that I can't wait for your decaf series! As someone with super low caffeine tolerance who wants to make home espresso (because I've watched way too many of your videos), I'm really interested to see what you have to say about decaf coffee, and decaf espresso in particular.
Have had some instant coffee that, despite filling the entire cup with it, and then adding almost no water, as there was no more room, it still did not taste like coffee should. Was still weak and insipid, despite being a brand that normally is associated with a top class instant coffee. However they also have a catering quality version, which this was. We figured out the best use was to use as valve grinding paste, or as glue, because it sure was not meant to be drinkable if you had any sort of taste receptor in your mouth. However try Greek and Turkish style coffee, because there you get the entire puck of coffee along with the extract, or at least the sludge at the bottom seems like it.
That was an excellent way of explaining a use of strength from the technical perspective. I have struggled in defining "strong" for others, so reaching for more exact words would definitely help. It's also nice to remove the word from the realm of subjective feelings.
James, I don't even drink coffee. Like ever, although I will enjoy a sweetened or iced cappuccino every now and again. But never black coffee, ever. And I just gotta say I find this world of coffee utterly fascinating. The exacting detail and minutiae that can go into it, all the gadgets I had no idea existed, all the love, expertise, and esoteric knowledge you obviously have on the topic, it just blows me away every video. You know you're great when you can even snare a person who has nothing in common with your main video focus, actually thinks black coffee is a bit disgusting, is on here, singing your praises, down to learn more about the world of the perfect cup ☕
This is a great video as always. I had a few laughs as well so thank you for that! I was wondering what the white cup you pour your beans into and then into a grinder is called? Thanks again for the lovely video
@@jameshoffmann purchased one recently after seeing it in a prior video. It seemed odd at first coming from a small cup for dosing, but having used it daily for weeks now I really like it. The design is very well thought out (unsurprisingly 😀). I was actually just thinking today I hope I never break it because it works so well and is so enjoyable to use.
I have to say, I love that James is conscientious enough that he disguised the brand of the coffee, so that even if people came to the wrong conclusions, they wouldn’t harm someone else’s small business. This man is a shining example of civility.
What gets me is when people go ooh that coffee is too strong and then they put less coffee in the Brew and they get more acidity out, and then when they get more acidity they go oh that's still too strong and they wound up at a point where the coffee was like dirty dishwater. This is a coffee my mother used to make. And probably why I didn't get into coffee until my late 30s. When I kind of accidentally fell into a properly made latte and went oh great.
As far as i know, it's a simple marketing gimmick. They sell it for overprice claiming it has higher caffeine content compared to other coffees. Most people are not aware that a variety of coffee called Robusta naturally has a higher amount of caffeine compared to Arabica varieties. For the price I can get fresh roasted from my local roaster. And they use the same coffee beans as everyone else, doubt the caffeine content is that’s much more. It’s just their selling angle. Plus Death Wish tastes like burnt rubber.... Lighter roasts typically have more caffeine. But coffee is coffee, it's not like one is going to have 2 or 3 times more than another. You want more, make it stronger.
"Caffeine content" is fascinating because although its always the same molecule between different caffeinated drinks, the way it affects you can also depend greatly on all the other stuff in the beverage. Some people react intensely to green tea, but not to coffee, while other people react more strongly to black tea. Personally I find darker roasts make me more jittery, while lighter roast are a much more stable and lasting high, despite being higher in caffeine content.
In college, I found if I just needed a 15-minute umph at the end of the day to grind through some more material I had to figure out (math major here), then chewing a single coffee bean was a good idea: it just gave a jolt that went away very quickly, in about 15-20 minutes. So, yes, I did chew on strong coffee beans.
Several years back, when I worked at a cafe, if a customer asked for our strongest coffee I would ask if they wanted the most caffeine or our darkest roast. They usually preferred the dark roast but the tired ones went with the lighter roast.
@@BenfuzeLight roasts have the most caffeine but the taste is more light. Dark roast is more full flavored but they have the least amount of caffeine. I like medium roast the best personally.
@deathmetal0914 From my personal experience, it doesn't matter what the roast is. You can get just as much caffeine. In fact, you can even get the most strongest flavor on top of that yet at the same time the most smoothest. It also helps to have the best process for the coffee.
Everyone here knew that James was going to taste it🤣 I started laughing my lungs out as soon as he said "this is basically instant coffee" because I was absolutely sure of the outcome🤣🤣
I knew one day my admiration for "Death Wish Coffee" and loyalty to James would be be tested. You did well James. I still think they're awesome, but at least now I know what I'm actually drinking. It does really speak to the power of good marketing honestly. Still, several good takeaways for me to keep improving my home espresso. Thanks!
I've talked to someone who works in marketing there. I told her she does a great job, and that yes I did mean that to be somewhat facetious, because people were paying $20 for 1/2 pound of it. If I'm remembering correctly, I think she first of all said "yeah I know right," then told me she didn't drink coffee.
I don't understand. I don't care about coffee, I drink coffee when I'm working to keep alert and it's provided by my company, and I watch every single video James puts out and loves them. This man is glorious.
A particular "strong" coffee I suspect was robusta disappointed me greatly because I bought one that was supposed to be 'strong' and was thinking it'd have a lot of flavor, especially as a dark roast (was brewed already)... and it had next to none. It was like coffee-scented water at best, a little bitter but almost flavorless. Blech. It did have 200mg of caffeine in a small amount, but I couldn't drink it. I was hoping with the caffeine level it'd be brewed with a lot of beans (and maybe it was but they were stale? But it was in Seattle, so... it should've been better to exist in this city from a non-Starbucks place local co.)
I'm very happy that you have created clarify about the question of strength. Now I just need a refractometer to find the actual amount of clarity provided.
James your item on strength was interesting however the section where you dehydrated the pucks to arrive at how much coffee was extracted seems to be flawed - how did you measure the moisture level of the beans pre extraction and then control the dehydration to get back to that figure - moisture loss in beans is obviously variable as they are roasted. During the dehydration process part of the weight loss may have been due to drying the coffee past the moisture level that was in the original grounds, I enjoyed the technical analytics however this part of the explanation left me wondering - keep up the great clips
Going into the video I was convinced using strength as a proxy for amount of caffeine content was the obvious, best usage of the word but you've successfully convinced me!
I've always assumed some of those who loudly prefer "strong" coffee do so at least in part because of insecurities about not being seen as strong themselves. When I was a teenager, I drank coffee that was basically charcoal because I thought it made me look more adult or like more of a man. I missed out on years of good coffee. Nobody ever went broke making insecure people feel strong.
As a fun little game for me: I’m at 45 seconds and my guess as to the “real” meaning of strength is dilution. Meaning less water and more beans produce a stronger coffee so the worlds strongest coffee is just a straight up bean. Edit:nailed it
In the US, specifically Wisconsin (where I live) we have a couple coffee brands I like. Raven's Brew Coffee does have a "Strong" coffee, but I actually prefer a lot of their other roasts which focus on earthy or berry flavors. And of course Death Wish, which is my favorite.
Today on "Is he talking about illicit drugs or coffee" :) I'm not even a coffee drinker but your shear enthusiasm and passion for the subject is just fascinating to witness.
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Not true James, I have some Ethiopian beans that can bench over 400 lb, it’s the strongest coffee I’ve ever seen.
My beans are fron Kenya, and they can run 42 km in no time.
weird flex but okay
I bought a Guatemalan coffee a few weeks ago that could overhead press 495
My beans were roasted in viking Norway and grew beards
@@BynineStudio it would be a very weird flex needed to make a seed bench 200+ kgs.
I once had and elderly couple come in to buy beans to make turkish coffee with, they asked to see a few beans and proceeded to eat them whole bean infront of my eyes. I knew it was my duty as a good barista to do the same (not as strong as I expected). They declared the darker columbian was the best for the brew method. As a budding turkish coffee enthusiast I brewed each roast as a turkish coffee and sampled them. They were absolutley right, I still drink it as a turkish coffee to this day.
This is my favourite customer experience to date.
That's lovely
Eating the bean is a good preliminary for how it's gonna taste
@@hoffer_moment I've had arabica beans enrobed in milk chocolate, pretty nice as a candy
elderly people are something else
Experience really packs a punch!
James blurring the coffee packet so as to not mess with their business is exactly why I love watching his channel and why he deserves all his success
Or not do advertising for a certain "strong" coffee companies who endorse certain child murderers...
@@Konarcoffee you mean the nespresso episode right
Came here to say basically this. Very much this. One rarely sees this normal and considerate behaviour on internet.
But isn't it pretty clear on the thumbnail?
The coffee I brewed is not Death Wish Coffee, but something more local to me
The most upsetting coffee conversation I had was with a colleague who managed to somehow merge all of the types of "strength" into one. He knew that a espresso is "stronger" than filter, so he wanted all of his coffee to come out of espresso machine, even though he wanted a full mug, which meant he made disgusting 300 ml lungos from a single dose. He equated bitterness with caffeine, so he went for the darkest most bitter coffees. So in the end he made coffee that was incredibly weak, but when he would take a sip he would wince and shudder from the bitterness and go "YEAH, that's some STRONG cup! That's how I like it!"
With that said, he did have a visceral reaction to the cup and he was convinced that was what he needed in the morning so... good for him I guess.
You've put me right off my coffee 🤮
I have a friend who acts like that. And my entire american relatives who are happy when they don't get the standard american "see-through" coffee served...
my mom equates strong with bitter also. she likes some terrible coffee because she can "taste" it. (in her case, partly i think it's aging taste buds and losing some of them so to speak. coffee and ales i notice she goes for bitter/strong over nuanced and the subtle things taste like nothing to her.)
Back when I was young and ignorant, and my only exposure to coffee was the communal coffee pot on midnight shifts, that's exactly what my mindset was. It wasn't until I bought a French press about 6 or 7 years ago that I started learning how to properly brew coffee or even what actually good coffee tasted like.
I realized, half-way through, that I grew up with that extraction-based concept of strength, but it was applied to brewing tea.
The Slavic tradition was to brew an overly-extracted tea base (заварка), and then each person would dilute their own cup with freshly boiled water to their preferred strength level.
Cool to know it applies similarly to coffee!
Well that's neat, a culture which almost should be entering coffee culture, as mokapot brewed overextracted and diluted by the consumer to prefference I like that thought
@@Benny_Custom you can make a 16ish TDS coffee in a mokapot 😇 though most ppl do just make like faux americanos/italianos/long blacks with them.
Wait is this not the way in all countries??? I thought zavarka applied to all tea making, wow, the more you know
@@evev5358 ha, here i am from the states thinking it's wild that that's the norm - to start with a concentrate. what's en vogue here now is "the perfect cup" of whatever you're making; generally with someone who supposedly knows what they're doing to "show others what it's supposed to taste like," as opposed to letting everyone do what they like.
i like that concept of "zavarka," im going to have to look into it more. ive been playing on opening a coffee shop with the focus being that "everyone is allowed to enjoy what they enjoy" with no pretension involved; wild to know this is such an old concept elsewhere in the world. i have some research to do!
@@Benny_Custom correct me here, but isn't that the basic idea behind the Americano?
The curiosity that led James to eat that coffee flake, is exactly what makes him who he is. That's why I'm here.
That laugh, right before he said "it's disgusting", that's pain lol.
James is dedicated to his cause, laughs at himself and keeps smiling through that "it's disgusting" and then questions his motivation, reasoning and sanity.
Still kinda disappointed he didn’t brew it.
@@Damian-xg8dw James probably did brew that "nectar of the gods" and he and his palette are still recovering.
@@Damian-xg8dw same, especially once he described the flake as tasting like marmite.
I work at what I imagine is the worst coffee roastery in the world, and my boss was talking this afternoon about the (incredibly sour) coffee he made this morning. He and a coworker agreed that it was "strong." Your videos help keep me sane
Is it from the roasting or the grind size?
@@ChickengoesBOK in that case I think it was grind size/dose, just not enough water to fully extract the amount of coffee he put in. But there's also zero quality control and the other production roaster puts out some incredibly scorched and uneven stuff, which when brewed tastes sour, bitter, and burnt. They make fun of me for weighing the dose when I make coffee, and thought my suggestion of a cupping table was silly.
@@Sam-lr9oi bro, forget them. You measure that for dose and you brew your coffee with the utmost excellence. Also any respectable roaster has a cupping lab for quality control and to make sure they’re getting their money’s worth. I hope you end up at a roaster who respects your care and skill for coffee one day man
@@ChickengoesBOK appreciate the kind words. What I have gotten there at least is a passion for coffee and the opportunity to learn on decent equipment, so I'll take that.
Why would it be sour instead of bitter. If you are tasting a sourness then something is wrong or you are using the wrong term.
_"I'm gonna have to taste it, aren't I?"_ James, your dedication to your viewers is unparalleled! Thank you for giving me more and better words for describing why and how I hate coffee (despite drinking it every day), and for giving me the hope that I may someday be offered a cup I would be willing to try without cream and sugar!
Get a popcorn popper and some green beans and you will after a short time be able to roast the type of bean to the exact taste you like, if you need cream and sugar you will most likely enjoy a central/south american bean.
If you have a local roaster, work with him/her to find a bean and roast that you like.
@@Thetache woah you really do that? Dont you burn out popcorn poppers like 3 times a year? They are not made for running that long
Try different types of coffee. Try it before add cream and sugar. Maybe you can find the taste you like.
@@skeetsmcgrew3282 its pretty common starter set up for roasting at home from what ive heard. havent tried it myself tho
Me: I think I understand coffee a bit
You: *pulls out a sonic screwdriver to measure coffee strength*
me: nvm
I'm a robot programmed to keep Fred Gordon Herbert's memory alive.
My knowledge of goes as far as knowing a : *_,,I had coffee with McCauley... HALF AN HOUR AGO!!!"_* from the .
Hope this bit of information was useful, have a great day!
Can someone please do a supercut of James tasting bad stuff? It would be so entertaining.
Hames Joffman has you covered on that one
@@cieproject2888Wait, what? How did I miss that...
James, watching you decide that you had to taste the dehydrated coffee sludge was the best part of this video. Your face anticipating the flavors and then experiencing them just killed me. Thanks for sharing this. Your reasoned explanation about the proper usage the word strength is how I have felt intuitively. Keep it up!
Reading this comment before seeing that moment had me worried he was going to take a bite out of one of the coffee pucks
Watching that scene was the (comedic) highlight for me, as well. But a very well-made video I enjoyed throughout.
"oh no"
I honestly thought it looked like he was going in for another bite just after he finished how saying how disgusting it was @ 12:35
Silly James, you didn’t even measure the shear strength! These beans resist grinding 5% more than any other beans. They’re the strongest in the world!
That’s funny
Titanium coated beans FTW!
Apologies in advance for pedantry: As these "strong" coffees are dark roasts they grind more easily (as they are more brittle and easier and/or faster to get finer grinds).
Didn't know that there was a structural engineering sub-group of James Hoffman fans. I'm all in!
I mean, you can go for the fancy high strength beans, but honestly, why bother when you can just reinforce the beans with teeny tiny rebars?
I'm always here for the self imposed culinary torture James! Brings a smile to my heart and makes me thankful I never have to risk to suffer the same, curiosity-inflicted fate 🙏
always good to know he's alive and healthy.
I had to laugh when the taste of instant coffee finally kicked in. 💛
Excellent performance by James, as always! 😄
For me, strength correlates strictly with the psycho-physiological feelings you get after the "dose". So it's basically caffeine content, though the rush you get might vary with the sugar/fat/water content in the cup.
I refer to the bitterness as " intensity " and to the content of coffee vs water as "concentration".
Interestingly, there's other compounds in coffee that contribute to the stimulant effects. Notably, theobromine, but as with many plant based entheogenics, there's likely confounding impacts from the various flavor compounds as well.
honestly same. if someone "wants to buy the strongest cup of coffee", you bet that what they want is 1st and foremost waking up for like 50 hours straight or something like that, and maybe 2nd for taste, if they also like dark chocolate. I never equate it to what strength should mean, although his explanation of what the term should mean makes sense, it feels less practical in real life.
widely held misconceptions will no longer be misconceptions, because in language, the masses have the most power in defining what something means.
@@theKashConnoisseur Theobromine and caffeine are not friends, from a sensation perspective. Very conflicting. Caffeine is stimulating, theobromine is almost psychedelic. Actually the reason I'm slowly phasing coffee out of my diet, even though I adore it.
The word is potency
@@VinTJusually the masses don't have the power in that case. For example this is all marketing driven nonsense
Interesting analysis.
When you said that the dehydrated espresso was like marmite or vegemite, the home-cook part of me was thinking that it could have some application to boost the savoury flavours of a dish. Maybe drop a few flakes into a chilli/spag bol or something like that.
It is! I use it or dark chocolate quite a lot to darken dishes.
actually if you watch korean cooking vlogs some people do drop a few specks of instant coffee into their curry or boiled pork belly!!
I actually keep some Medaglia D'Oro instant espresso in the kitchen specifically for this purpose!! It's amazing in chili, any kind of red sauce you wanna give some depth to, and any meat dish you wanna cook "low and slow".
I've been thinking about trying to cook a ham in a slow cooker with coffee to see how that affect the flavor but I'm afraid of ruining a ham
It's savoury, but it's also insanely bitter. Probably not going to enhance any dish.
Among the many reasons I love James is his integrity and consideration. There’s no productive purpose to trashing a small business to be able to make this point. James is a thoughtful guy and he accommodated that. I can’t say how much I respect that about him.
I agree it didn't matter what brand it was, with the clout James has in the coffee world, it would have pretty much killed the brand if he did. It is quite respectful of him to take that level of care in his videos.
I had once a grain of the strongest coffee, it almost broke my grinder. Turned out it was a rock.
Roast until gravel.
I have a hand crank burr Grinder and rocks terrify me
As a chemist, thank you. I find the way strength is described with regard to roast level incredibly frustrating and it was after discovering your channel (thanks to your Tom Scott mashup) that I found satisfaction. Great work!
Tom Scott mashup is really a blessing, I would never find out about James without it
@@hafidzgi yeah I wouldn't have found this channel to watch otherwise.
It turns out that I have watched his French Press video ages ago, but was unaware
Roast level can affect alot of things altering and outright removing certain volatile compounds which are in coffee but coincidentally one thing that roasting doesn't really do at all is affect caffeine levels as its not very volatile thing. but my question is would lets say if you started with the same amount of beans before roasting then extracted them heavy roasted vs very light roasted would caffeine be available to be extracted easily from the heavy roast rather than light roast where there are more things left that may hinder the caffeine release ? i would think there would be a measurable difference no in accessibility of the caffeine ?
This is a very nice video! It puts to words a concept I feel I had been working around for awhile - I don't like bitter coffee, but I love very strong flavors.
It is, indeed, confusing and sightly frustrating. I was instinctively attached to the idea of bitterness and conceptually attached to the idea of caffeine content.
You managed to take down both in a very clear way, and the alcohol percentage analogy was crystal clear. Thank you! 👏🏻👏🏻
The moment James Hoffman started cracking the dehydrated coffee and in my mind I am like "is he going to eat it?" YESSSSS! Thank you James, you never disappoint in your videos!
Coffee beans actually have a surprisingly pleasant taste.
Edit: but yeah, basically burnt coffee not so much.
Should have rehydrated it like instant coffee. Coward
Customer: give me your strongest cup
James Hoffman: well, let me tell you about strength…
(14:27 minutes later)
Customer: thanks, give me the boldest cup you’ve got
"You don't know what you ask, customer. My strongest cups will kill a dragon let alone a man. You need a seller that sells weaker cups, because my cups are too strong."
Ahhhhhhhhh.
The strength is bad enough but the one or two times I had a customer ask for a "bold" coffee I nearly had an aneurysm. Like at least strength refers to actual objective descriptors, but what the fuck is bold supposed to mean?
@@andershaldorsen3548 I would think that's pretty obvious, it's describing the intensity of the flavor experience. This might not help you choose, since you probably have more than one coffee (of very different roast levels) that could produce intense flavors. The request is underspecified, but that's why they asked a barista who can just make the rest of the assumptions for you. If a customer actually knew exactly what they wanted, they get a lot less benefit from asking a human with expertise about it.
@@MobiusHorizons intensity is very subjective though. A bitter dark coffee and an acidic light coffee could both be described as "intense," so judging intensity is completely variable. My cafe didn't even have any dark coffee, just a medium blend and a rotating single origin that was usually light roasted, and neither were really that intense anyway. I would typically assume "bold" means "burnt," so by that standard we didn't have any coffee like that. My next best guess would be that bold refers to strength, as described in the video, but we used about the same ratio for all of our coffees in order to extract it about the same and extract it well, meaning that none are stronger than the other. Bold is really just the worst way a person can describe a coffee to a coffee nerd, and at a cafe for coffee nerds, it's the most frustrating request because of the ambiguity of what it means combined with the high probability that we don't have what they're looking for
@@agyagasztal Coffee Seller, I'm telling you I need your strongest coffee. I'm going into work! I'm going to work and I need your strongest coffee!"
I argue there is also a 5th meaning when people talk about, “coffee strength.”
Working in a gas station, I’ve had plenty of people ask me which of our coffee selections are, “the strongest,” when asking about how it will affect their stomachs/digestive tracts… I think that example gives enough detail as to what they mean…
That’s from my experience usually correlated to extraction
@@nomongosinthaworld so an empty stomach is a result of full extraction, right?
And interestingly decaf doesn't make much of a difference when it comes to digestive tract effect, at least in my own experience.
That’s the caffeine
@@AveragePicker caffeine pills don't make me need to poop, and I used to rely on those before I got diagnosed and properly medicated for ADHD. Energy drinks didn't/don't make me need to poop either, unlike coffee.
Edit: I am not saying caffeine can't make people need to defecate, just that it isn't why coffee is so effective at it.
"Potion seller, sell me your strongest coffee."
"There is no strongest coffee. This is a nice blend though."
Underrated
It's funny because as a coffee nerd, I'm actually looking into reducing my caffeine consumption. Can't wait on that decaf video. There's something to be said about enjoying coffee without the "drug" part, e.g. cupping 6 coffees without having to worry about what time of day it is or risking feeling sick afterwards.
I love the taste of coffee and can drink it all day everyday. I started buying decaf for my after morning coffees to reduce my caffeine consumption and the jitters/heart pain. Definitely recommend for anyone like me who can’t stand not having the taste of coffee!
@@aves1099 Agreed! I bought some decaf to have a cup with dinner because coffee with a good meal is a joyous experience but I want to be able to sleep easily still.
@@aves1099 Exactly how I feel!
You are not a Coffee nerd. Decafinated coffee ??? What is the point ?
@@mrgcav the aesthetic experience of coffee doesn't lie solely on the caffeine effect, cmon, they didn't say "caffeine nerd"
Holy crap I have this debate on a nearly daily basis with my coworker who has Death Wish swag all over his cubicle. You’re doing the lords work here James.
I've enjoyed Death Wish coffee at times, but I never bought into the 'world's strongest' nonsense. It never made any sense to me
@@masterofallgoons yeah I’m really not the evangelist. I just have to listen to regurgitated ad copy while he pops k cups into his brewer and mocks whatever light roast I’m doing in my aeropress. I’m not saying COVID was a good thing. But it had its upsides.
Death Wish is my fallback, but I don't buy the marketing gimmicks, haha. I drink it because a friend introduced me to it and it tastes good
@@theStumblinbear Tell me your secrets because I have gotten 5 bags, 2 have tastes like unwashed gym socks and the other 3 have tasted like rancid oil.
@@MortisObscura Dunno. Do you normally drink dark, or do you lean more towards lighter roasts? Personally I'm not a huge fan of lighter
James is in a unique position, influencing the vocabulary of coffee enthusiasts around the world. We can just be thankful he does it with such caution, tact, and patience.
When you picked up the dried "instant coffee" piece, I immediately yelled out "TASTE IT! TASTE IT!" and I knew you would and laughed when you said "i'm gonna have to taste it, aren't i?" HAHA love u always James for doing these things
Same for me 😂
The man knows us well :D
Eat it, just eat it
Palpatine: Brew It!
I was waiting for him to weigh it! That’s why he dehydrated it, right?
Thank you. This is one of the most frequently misunderstood things about our favourite beverage, especially here in Brazil where most people drink "strong" (i.e. dense) filtered coffee with a lot of sugar.
When referring to psychoactive substances, I thought it was recognized that strength always meant concentration of the active molecule(s). So there should indeed be a "World's Strongest Coffee" in terms of caffeine density.
Exactly that just makes sense to me
Well as a biochemist it's not exactly the case. There is a parameter which is called dissociation constant. This is the amount of said substance needed to bind to 50% of the relevant receptors. This relates to the affinity of it all. So substances with very high kd, and thus very low affinity, need a whole lot of molecules to be able to bind. This is why they say drugs like fentanyl are way stronger and active at a lower concentrations
@@RustlessPotato Right, but we're not talking about a range of psychoactive substances with varying potencies. For the vast majority of coffee drinkers, the sought after active compound is caffeine, which should be about the same level of receptor binding affinity regardless of source. So to determine strength, we can simply look at caffeine concentrations.
Let's use your fentanyl as an analogy. A prescription preparation that releases a lower concentration of fentanyl is weaker, while a preparation that releases a higher concentration of fentanyl is stronger. Because we are only concerned with the single active chemical, we don't have to worry about the binding affinity of codeine since there isn't any in our preparation. In the same way, since the primary chemical we are concerned with is caffeine, we don't need to be concerned with the binding affinity of methamphetamine. Make sense?
@@theKashConnoisseur yes, you're absolutely correct. I misinterpreted the original comment when I replied. Thanks for the correction. Have a nice day !
@@RustlessPotato this has got to be the most polite response to a comment i‘ve seen in the entire internet.
We used to get chocolate covered coffee beans in our MREs in the Marines. Everyone else was obsessed with skittles and M&Ms. But those little coffee beans were like magic on late night watches.
Shock-a-lots! Wish more stores sold them
@@scottlawless8854 Yeah, I haven't seen them anywhere. I even considered building my own candy panner Kitchen Aid attachment to make my own. Thanks BTW, I had forgotten the name!
@@kevinj9059 It's not hard to buy chocolate-coated coffee beans. Amazon will sell you a hundred different brands.
USMC version of Panzer Schokolade
James' best quality: The absolute *Commitment* to tasting everything
This was a great explanation of what “strength” means. I drank that robusta, 200% caffeine, dark roast coffee. Great marketing gimmick, but not great coffee. I prefer dark roast coffee, and I like a stronger brew. I think that may have to do with my Navy days where by the time one of those huge coffee makers was down to the bottom of the pot, the sludge drawn from it probably tasted like the dehydrated stuff James had. I’ve been drinking coffee since I was 7, and having consumed it around the world, I think my favorite is the coffee I had in Brazil. It’s strong, but flavorful.
The anti dark roast contignent is amazingly insufferable, like they know The One True Way to drink coffee and everything else is morally evil. They're freaking vegans about it.
(Putting good light roast beans into good full fat milk is surely a morally repugnant waste of both the milk and the coffee, but French press some good dark beans, pour the coffee into a bunch of full fat milk, and the resulting drink is like hot chocolate, but not, or like liquid panna cotta. It's amazingly smooth and tastes way more rich than how much fat there actually is in the cup)
Brazilian coffee has great balance, especially if you like darker roasts. The environment produces beans that tend to be less acidic and fruitier to begin with, so they remain well rounded even when roasted dark, letting you taste all aspects without any being overpowering. Brazilian coffees are definitely my favourites as well.
Thanks for teaching me about strength, it all makes sense now. I prefer a fruity light roasted arabica coffee from an espresso machine but I used to look for the highest number of "strength" to determine which coffee I bought. I have more shots in a long black so I'm having a stronger coffee than just about everyone because of the actual amount of coffee in my cup, thanks for clarifying.
I've been trying to perfect my cups of coffee every morning, and your channel has helped a ton with that
Thank you for this video, I feel like most coffee drinkers need to see this.
The thing that bugs me the most with “strength” meaning caffeine is that it’s so ridiculously variable. I’m pretty caffeine-sensitive so I need to find low-caffeine brewing methods. Cold brew is perfect at extracting *all* the caffeine (while avoiding the tasty chemicals I’m actually here for), and even decaf coffee usually has more caffeine than I can handle when done as cold brew. Meanwhile, espresso is the opposite - amazing extraction of flavor compounds but much less caffeine overall (relative to input dose and flavor extraction, anyway, not relative to output volume), but because the flavor is “strong” people assume it’ll also be highly-caffeinated.
I also feel like most talk about “strength” (in any food or drink) is really more about “how unpleasant is this” i.e. how “manly” you have to be to tolerate it.
Well said! Maybe James can address this: I've heard for decades that there is SOOOO much more caffeine in espresso than a filter brew. Coming from a science and engineering background, I assumed they are referring to the caffeine concentration, not the total number of milligrams consumed. But my guess is that many people think a shot of espresso has more milligrams of caffeine than an 8 ounce (yes, I'm American) cup of coffee.
@@Acceleronics Yeah, 8 ounces of espresso has more caffeine than 8 ounces of drip, but most people aren't drinking 8 ounces of espresso! Getting good numbers is difficult because everything's so variable but my understanding is that espresso has around half as much caffeine *per serving* (e.g. extracted from a typical 15-gram dose) than something with a longer brew time (such as French press), and drip is somewhere in the middle.
It's all about how long the water is in contact with the coffee itself, which is also the fundamental basis of how the Swiss Water Process decaffeination method works.
@@Acceleronics a typical 8oz cup of drip if brewed in pour over fashion at a 1:16 ratio which is standard for drip and pour over recipes, would mean you're using about 14grams of coffee grounds for the 8oz cup. A standard modern "shot" of espresso which would be considered a double shot relative to espresso from decades ago would use 18-20grams of coffee. If they both extract caffeine well then the shot would have more caffeine since it used more ground coffee.
@@henriliebenberg6150 It's not just about the amount of coffee in, though, it's about the efficiency of the caffeine extraction during the process. Water is in contact with espresso grounds for *way* less time than with drip.
Dose size does vary considerably but a 20% larger dose for an 18g espresso shot vs. a 15g drip coffee might not counterbalance the longer extraction time of the drip coffee. Also, a lot of espresso is still a 15g dose (which is what used to be a "double" compared to the classic 7-8g dose).
Perhaps people subliminally do consider coffee more classed as a drug, being a conduit for caffeine (rightfully so imo) but compare that to how you might respond if someone said a cocktail was “strong” or a beer was “strong”, what is your impulse about what they are referring to? There is some overlap with that idea of unpleasantness but I think that is a random correlation because the drug, alcohol, is inherently unpleasant. If you take another example like a can of dip being strong or a joint being strong it seems to refer to the strength of intoxicant.
Always looking forward to your next videos! Thanks a lot!!
It reminds me of some beer packaging where they not only display the % of alcohol but also the IBU for bitterness and EBC for color (I think it's this one for color). Im pretty sur that there are other units used also. But it's great to see this level of transparency
I really appreciated how clear and precise this video was in delineating “strength.” Thanks, James!
"...oh, I'm going to have to try this, aren't I?"
You sir are a treasure. Your videos never seize to be entertaining and informative. Thank you James.
Hey James! I just wanted to say I _mostly_ whole-heartedly agree with what you're saying, especially about how confusing it is with strength being used in so many different ways, however, I do have one thing to point out.
In your video when talking about alcohol strengths, you mentioned that they measure the *percentage of ethanol*, however when measuring the strength of coffee you're measuring *dissolved coffee solids* - this comparison would actually be more akin to measuring the total amount of malt or grapes dissolved into a glass of beer or wine, a measure of caffeine percentage would be the most accurate 1:1 comparison, however, this would be much harder to measure I'm sure.
On another note, I've worked as a barista for a long time and this has always frustrated me lol. I sometimes mention to people that darkness of roast is not really a correlation to how much caffeine is in a cup, but people get really annoyed and think if it's not bitter then you must be giving them less coffee or something. - "This tastes milky" - "well, you did order a latte" - "but I like my coffee strong"... It has the same amount of caffeine as the coffee you usually get and it doesn't taste shit and bitter! Enjoy it!
i had so many people come into various shops & say "i've heard lighter roasted coffee has more caffeine. is that true?" & i always told them "well it's a negligible difference." if you're after caffeine, there's way stronger avenues to that. but hey, if people have a sense of nostalgia or familiarity with darkly roasted coffee - let them enjoy it. light roast natural in a chemex ain't even gonna taste like "coffee" to them - especially if they add stuff to it. also, the roast can hide the lack quality in a lot of beans that a.) is a big way darker roasters can save money - buying less quality beans & b.) can be a bit of help if you already invest in a lot that you're somehow stuck with & want to at least get it to the point where you begin tasting the roast & not the beans. & finally, some coffees like sumatrans can compliment a slightly darker roast than like an ethiopia.
In the past, (youth) we used the term of strength as a measure of how much instant granules were added to how much hot water. For example: 2 tablespoons of coffee crystals to 4 ounces of water was a very "strong" cup. Consequently, 1 teaspoon added to 8 ounces hot water produced a "weak" cup. I think a similar comparison to tea. The more tea and longer steeps make a "stronger" cup. Sorry for the inexact measurements here, never weighed the grams of each in those days. Thanks for the clarification.
A modern analogy is the misuse of the phrase "hang up the phone" which is meaningless now.
Well then it looks like young you got it right then - amount if instant to water would be exactly analogous to James's preferred used of "strength" :)
I love how James makes qualitative things very nerdy and quantitative
As someone who is very interested in learning more about coffee and brewing, this is a very useful and informative video. Thank you for clarifying and setting a more definitive definition for coffee strength
This is a frequent “argument” I have with my dad. He insists that he likes strong coffee, when he really means bitter. He likes a darker roast. But because the “Intensity scales” on coffee products (pods, grounds, beans) often call that strong, it’s what sticks.
However, I also have been using strong “incorrectly”. I would have used strong to describe a coffee with a “higher saturation” of flavour. You can have a mildly fruity coffee, or one with a strong fruit flavour. I suppose for clarity, it’s better to use a different modifier for the “strength” of flavour!
It's amazing how many middle aged or old men love coffee to be super bitter. Oh well, whatever they enjoy is best for them
@@samneibauer4241 Im convinced its because they subconsciously associate bitterness with higher caffeine content. Like how people eventually grow to love the burn of high alcohol content. Its essentially flavor masochism
@@skeetsmcgrew3282 ah yes, I wonder if there's a term for this type of masculinity, when you try and seem tough by subjecting yourself to pain, often in a fairly toxic way
@@samneibauer4241 Of all the sins to be laid at the feet of toxic masculinity, I'm not sure why flavour masochism or lust for perceived concentration is it. They aren't proving anything to anyone. Once the lid goes on those adult sippy-cups nobody knows or cares what's inside. It could be a Turkish grind hydrated to the level of a non-Newtonian fluid that you could walk on, or it could be warm double cream with caramel syrup & chocolate sprinkles.
@@InnuendoXP He had to stand there and order it, though. In public.
I would love a video of James making his own instant coffee. Freeze-drying, using a pressure cooker, heating the coffee. It would be fascinating.
I was just explaining to a friend recently about the difference between strength and extraction level, and I feel validated by this video. Perhaps it would be good to make another video explaining why over- or under-extracted coffee tastes bad. It seems on the surface that percent extraction should be preferential just like percent strength, but this is of course not the case, as we have sour, vegetal under-extraction and harsh, burnt-tasting over-extraction.
I think one of the videos in his espresso series talks about this, I think it’s the grind size video but I’m not sure.
Am I wrong or did he pretty much just say that extraction and strength are essentially the same thing?
Toomany you're sort of wrong, because unlike the extraction you can change the strength by dilute, and technically evaporation
Must say I love absolutely everything about this channel! Mr Hoffman sure makes it very interesting and his voice contributes to it. Easy to follow and to understand. Not a huge coffeelover but love this channel! Many thanks to You Sir!
The only person I know of that is able to say "that's nice, but your wrong" in a considerate and articulate way. As usual James another quality information filled upload that the mere mortals of the world like myself can understand and get my head around
I was very much hoping he’d take a bite of that dehydrated espresso shot. Thank you, James, you never disappoint!
A more precise word for what James is calling in the second half of the video Strength, would be Concentration: "The concentration of a solution is a measure of the amount of solute that has been dissolved in a given amount of solvent or solution."
Given that all refractometers measure the speed of light through a liquid, it should in theory be possible to convert any refractometer reading in Brix or degrees Plato to coffee extraction. The difference is basically just look-up table and a bit of math. A cursory web search doesn't bring up any way to convert, but it should in theory be possible.
Update: I've found a rough conversion formula TDS = Brix * 0.85.
This video shows James at his most coffee-nerdiest. With grins and giggles to boot. This is why we come to you, James! I discovered 'Kicking Mule' a couple years back, but due to hypertension, never imbibed. Recently, I was rather astonished to find that it's now being sold at my local Target ( _Target,_ people!), so I'm assuming Target is trying to get all hip by delving into the more "specialized coffee" scene. Weirdly. Of course, it was 3x the price of any other type they sell, so there's that. Do hipsters _want_ to pay 3x more for their coffee? Thank you James, your insight is always so incredibly delightful!
You bring a great deal of clarity to teasing out what is so casually alleged about our favorite brews. You are a STRONG coffee aficionado! Without being "officious."
Great Video! But...I must disagree with the comparison to alcoholic beverages, since alcohol% (strength) is the concentration of a single (psychoactive, like caffeine) compound (ethanol) while James´ definition of coffee strength is the concentration of all compounds extracted from the coffee. If we take beer for example, yes, it might contain 5% alcohol, but it also contains around 3-5% of various other compounds such as organic acids, dextrins (carbs) and essential oils, all things that have been extracted into solution or been catalyzed or metabolized by yeast, but we wouldn´t include that in the context of the "strength" of the beer. Nobody says that the strength of this beer is 10%, but that is including everything in solution! Therefore it would be better to compare the concentration of caffeine in coffee as strength to the concentration of alcohol in alcoholic beverages, basically singling out the concentration of one specific compound and comparing that.
This just reminds me that I can't wait for your decaf series! As someone with super low caffeine tolerance who wants to make home espresso (because I've watched way too many of your videos), I'm really interested to see what you have to say about decaf coffee, and decaf espresso in particular.
Have had some instant coffee that, despite filling the entire cup with it, and then adding almost no water, as there was no more room, it still did not taste like coffee should. Was still weak and insipid, despite being a brand that normally is associated with a top class instant coffee. However they also have a catering quality version, which this was. We figured out the best use was to use as valve grinding paste, or as glue, because it sure was not meant to be drinkable if you had any sort of taste receptor in your mouth.
However try Greek and Turkish style coffee, because there you get the entire puck of coffee along with the extract, or at least the sludge at the bottom seems like it.
That was an excellent way of explaining a use of strength from the technical perspective. I have struggled in defining "strong" for others, so reaching for more exact words would definitely help. It's also nice to remove the word from the realm of subjective feelings.
James, I don't even drink coffee. Like ever, although I will enjoy a sweetened or iced cappuccino every now and again. But never black coffee, ever. And I just gotta say I find this world of coffee utterly fascinating. The exacting detail and minutiae that can go into it, all the gadgets I had no idea existed, all the love, expertise, and esoteric knowledge you obviously have on the topic, it just blows me away every video. You know you're great when you can even snare a person who has nothing in common with your main video focus, actually thinks black coffee is a bit disgusting, is on here, singing your praises, down to learn more about the world of the perfect cup ☕
This is a great video as always. I had a few laughs as well so thank you for that! I was wondering what the white cup you pour your beans into and then into a grinder is called? Thanks again for the lovely video
It's a tray we made: tenshundredsthousands.com/products/coffee-dosing-tray
@@jameshoffmann But why did you have to make it look like a bed pan for a guinea pig?
I scrolled down to find exactly this comment.
Ordered!
Thank you.
@@jameshoffmann purchased one recently after seeing it in a prior video. It seemed odd at first coming from a small cup for dosing, but having used it daily for weeks now I really like it. The design is very well thought out (unsurprisingly 😀). I was actually just thinking today I hope I never break it because it works so well and is so enjoyable to use.
I have to say, I love that James is conscientious enough that he disguised the brand of the coffee, so that even if people came to the wrong conclusions, they wouldn’t harm someone else’s small business. This man is a shining example of civility.
What gets me is when people go ooh that coffee is too strong and then they put less coffee in the Brew and they get more acidity out, and then when they get more acidity they go oh that's still too strong and they wound up at a point where the coffee was like dirty dishwater. This is a coffee my mother used to make. And probably why I didn't get into coffee until my late 30s. When I kind of accidentally fell into a properly made latte and went oh great.
thank you! i hate trying to answer this question for people lol
It would be amazing to have a video about how different brewing methodes affect the final caffeine content
As far as i know, it's a simple marketing gimmick.
They sell it for overprice claiming it has higher caffeine content compared to other coffees. Most people are not aware that a variety of coffee called Robusta naturally has a higher amount of caffeine compared to Arabica varieties.
For the price I can get fresh roasted from my local roaster. And they use the same coffee beans as everyone else, doubt the caffeine content is that’s much more. It’s just their selling angle. Plus Death Wish tastes like burnt rubber....
Lighter roasts typically have more caffeine. But coffee is coffee, it's not like one is going to have 2 or 3 times more than another. You want more, make it stronger.
Yessss
"Caffeine content" is fascinating because although its always the same molecule between different caffeinated drinks, the way it affects you can also depend greatly on all the other stuff in the beverage. Some people react intensely to green tea, but not to coffee, while other people react more strongly to black tea.
Personally I find darker roasts make me more jittery, while lighter roast are a much more stable and lasting high, despite being higher in caffeine content.
This was literally a great class on the philosophy of coffee.
In college, I found if I just needed a 15-minute umph at the end of the day to grind through some more material I had to figure out (math major here), then chewing a single coffee bean was a good idea: it just gave a jolt that went away very quickly, in about 15-20 minutes. So, yes, I did chew on strong coffee beans.
Several years back, when I worked at a cafe, if a customer asked for our strongest coffee I would ask if they wanted the most caffeine or our darkest roast. They usually preferred the dark roast but the tired ones went with the lighter roast.
Does light roast have more caffeine?
@@BenfuzeLight roasts have the most caffeine but the taste is more light. Dark roast is more full flavored but they have the least amount of caffeine. I like medium roast the best personally.
What if you want both the strongest caffeine and taste? Actually, how about the smothest at the same time. That's what death wish is like.
@deathmetal0914 From my personal experience, it doesn't matter what the roast is. You can get just as much caffeine. In fact, you can even get the most strongest flavor on top of that yet at the same time the most smoothest. It also helps to have the best process for the coffee.
James:"That is not the point of this video". Everyone watching:"That is exactly the point of the video".
Everyone here knew that James was going to taste it🤣 I started laughing my lungs out as soon as he said "this is basically instant coffee" because I was absolutely sure of the outcome🤣🤣
I love that brown cup! Could you possibly link to where you got it from? Loved the video again btw! Cheers James
I think this is my favourite Hoffman video ever. Thank you for taking us on your journey James. Keep safe.
I don't even like coffee at all but that voice kept me around and I learned something new that'll never come up in normal conversations.
James hair is going strong in this video.
I knew one day my admiration for "Death Wish Coffee" and loyalty to James would be be tested. You did well James. I still think they're awesome, but at least now I know what I'm actually drinking. It does really speak to the power of good marketing honestly. Still, several good takeaways for me to keep improving my home espresso. Thanks!
I'd like to see if you'd be interested in buying this can of Liquid Death water.
I've talked to someone who works in marketing there. I told her she does a great job, and that yes I did mean that to be somewhat facetious, because people were paying $20 for 1/2 pound of it. If I'm remembering correctly, I think she first of all said "yeah I know right," then told me she didn't drink coffee.
I like death wish but not worth the high price
He’s confirmed it’s not Death Wish
and I know that Death Wish does in fact roast there own beans and has a secret process to make it more caffeinated
Man, I'm SO glad you made this video!! I've been saying part of what you're saying to my friends for years. Sharing this with all of them.
James, your reactions are as precious as reviewbrah reactions. We enjoy them all
I don't understand. I don't care about coffee, I drink coffee when I'm working to keep alert and it's provided by my company, and I watch every single video James puts out and loves them. This man is glorious.
James' laugh of incredulity that follows every bad taste-test absolutely makes my day every time hahaha!
A particular "strong" coffee I suspect was robusta disappointed me greatly because I bought one that was supposed to be 'strong' and was thinking it'd have a lot of flavor, especially as a dark roast (was brewed already)... and it had next to none. It was like coffee-scented water at best, a little bitter but almost flavorless. Blech. It did have 200mg of caffeine in a small amount, but I couldn't drink it. I was hoping with the caffeine level it'd be brewed with a lot of beans (and maybe it was but they were stale? But it was in Seattle, so... it should've been better to exist in this city from a non-Starbucks place local co.)
I'm very happy that you have created clarify about the question of strength. Now I just need a refractometer to find the actual amount of clarity provided.
2:35 the face of a man enjoying his brewing experience
I do love that you, James, take a strange delight in how disgusting the dried coffee was!
Three weeks is a long time on RUclips!
I envy James for being so busy and not having to wait for his videos. 😃
James your item on strength was interesting however the section where you dehydrated the pucks to arrive at how much coffee was extracted seems to be flawed - how did you measure the moisture level of the beans pre extraction and then control the dehydration to get back to that figure - moisture loss in beans is obviously variable as they are roasted. During the dehydration process part of the weight loss may have been due to drying the coffee past the moisture level that was in the original grounds, I enjoyed the technical analytics however this part of the explanation left me wondering - keep up the great clips
His face and demeanor and movement while brewing was priceless.
Going into the video I was convinced using strength as a proxy for amount of caffeine content was the obvious, best usage of the word but you've successfully convinced me!
I've always assumed some of those who loudly prefer "strong" coffee do so at least in part because of insecurities about not being seen as strong themselves. When I was a teenager, I drank coffee that was basically charcoal because I thought it made me look more adult or like more of a man. I missed out on years of good coffee.
Nobody ever went broke making insecure people feel strong.
This is the most millennial comment ever :D
@@MartiniComedian Here comes a comedian to unironically call me out for a comment about people compensating for being insecure.
@@willschneider4616 Ahahahah.
You are like a cinnamon roast: you're part of the problem I have with modern coffee culture! 🤣🤣🤣
You should try making your own instant coffee! Would be interesting to see the process, assuming you can get a freeze dryer.
I'm here to watch James Hoffman roast the beans that these small companies don't roast themselves.
I appreciate the clarification around the word strength. Thanks.
I get my beans from Sagada and that coffee has helped me get through a lot of tough times. And I think that shows real strength, James.
As a fun little game for me: I’m at 45 seconds and my guess as to the “real” meaning of strength is dilution. Meaning less water and more beans produce a stronger coffee so the worlds strongest coffee is just a straight up bean.
Edit:nailed it
Notification squad, where are you at?
Ayo
James almost invented a whole new coffee experience, eating dehydrated espresso candies.
In the US, specifically Wisconsin (where I live) we have a couple coffee brands I like.
Raven's Brew Coffee does have a "Strong" coffee, but I actually prefer a lot of their other roasts which focus on earthy or berry flavors.
And of course Death Wish, which is my favorite.
Today on "Is he talking about illicit drugs or coffee" :) I'm not even a coffee drinker but your shear enthusiasm and passion for the subject is just fascinating to witness.
I once brewed coffee in a french press for two weeks. It tasted like charcoal. I'm pretty use that was the strongest cup of coffee in the world.
Turned back into beans !