Today I greet the readers of coopzeitung with a quirky smile from the cover of the printed edition. And in the Online edition you can also read a detailed article and watch some kleine video tips from Demian and me. We're thrilled to be able to represent our passion project on such a large platform.
The author of the article, Stefan Fehlmann, spent many hours with me at the academy and together we explored the depths of coffee. It was a lot of fun. Thanks for your interest and great questions!
Lucia Hunziker captured it all as a photographer with brilliant images. Many thanks, Lucian!
An article is always a compilation of many topics and not everything fits in full. That's why there is, for example, a Brewing course that runs over several days rather than just a few hours. In that sense, an article is also a compromise. This article in coopzeitung touched on many different areas.
But there's one small note I think is important, because the graphic shown on beverages is not entirely precise on a topic that's central to me. No, it's not about the amount of milk foam to heated milk. That's certainly something one could debate.
With cappuccino and latte macchiato, typically one espresso is used in each case, and that's also the case here in the Grafik of the article. That's correct. However, the ratio of dissolved coffee solids (TDS) to water changes when milk is added. Assuming that cow's milk consists of approximately 87.5% water, along with carbohydrates, milk fat, protein, etc., the overall proportion of dissolved coffee solids in relation to water and other new components of the beverage is of course no longer 7–10% TDS. The milk should be seen here as a "bypass," which changes the percentage ratio.
You can calculate it as follows:
(current espresso coffee weight x current espresso strength)/total drink amount (including "bypassed" milk/water) = final TDS of dissolved coffee solids in relation to total drink volume
Example: Espresso = 25 g, TDS % = 8, added milk volume = 130 ml
((25 g espresso × 8 (% TDS))/155 g total drink volume = 1.29% TDS
So in the end, the cappuccino in terms of strength is nothing more than a filter coffee with a milk flavor. 🙂
If you want to account for the TDS of the milk or added water, the formula looks like this:
((current espresso coffee weight x current espresso strength) + (added liquid amount (milk/water) × TDS milk/water))/total drink amount/100 = final TDS of dissolved coffee solids to total volume
"Bypass" is by the way a really fascinating topic. It's always liquid that doesn't flow through the coffee during extraction but is added afterwards. That could be water, milk, or even spirits. But more on that another time. For now, we're just happy to continue celebrating the article in coopzeitung.
