A big thank you to all who provided help and feedback on this! Cheers! :)
My digital pedagogy project, "Home Brew Coffee: A Beginner's Guide", is finally finished! The Learnist portfolio, as well as my YouTube video playlist, are over on the "Digital Pedagogy Project" page.
A big thank you to all who provided help and feedback on this! Cheers! :)
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As I've grown older (and hopefully wiser), I've realized how much I idealize my own plans in my mind. Then, when I fall miserably short of what I intended to achieve, I feel like I've hardly accomplished anything. Fortunately, with the help of many who are older and wiser than I, I've learned to scale back a bit on those crazily unrealistic goals and appreciate what's in front of me. It's still difficult, as I'm a born perfectionist, but the phrase "grace, not perfection" from one of my favorite bloggers/online shops has become more and more a mantra for me. In other words, being able to do my best with what I have in the present moment -- not what I think I should have, or what I'm able to do when I'm rested and have all the time in the world. So, as I worked to convert my high, high hopes for my digital pedagogy project into reality, I reminded myself over and over to be more focused (and happy) with progress rather than a perfect final product. This was especially important in the filming stages of my videos, since I was trying to get all of the shoots done while visiting family (who had loads of space and a lovely backdrop). I doubled as the camera operator and barista, so everything took a little longer than I originally planned. Okay, a lot longer. And I was on crutches, so editing out the hoping-on-one-foot shots was time consuming as well. But, my new inspirational quote paid off, and I finally have my first set of instructional videos ever (and probably the last for awhile!) Check out the first one below: After taking a poll and getting input for my digital pedagogy project (DPP), I found that there was the most interest in helping others learn how to make good coffee at home. I had a lot of different options for this, but I settled on three methods that are fairly user-friendly: : the V60 pour-over dripper, the French press, and an immersion-brew pot like the Sowden SoftBrew (see photos below). There is some special equipment required for these methods, but there are a number of inexpensive options on the market. All of these methods are easy and take 10 minutes or less. Just make sure to use filtered water, some good coffee (i.e., not the pre-ground stuff that's been on the shelf for months!), and the right proportions. So no more excuses! Make your mornings better and treat yourself to a good cup of home brewed coffee. You might even surprise yourself! I've really enjoyed working on my 20% project, Course Grind, so far this semester. It's been a blast learning the nuances of brewing and tasting (even though there is a lot more that I have yet to experience) and exploring the amazing local coffee community. At this point in the adventure, I will be shifting my focus from increasing my knowledge to sharing some of the information that I have. Although not related to technology in content, I will be using technology to create and share this little instructional endeavor. I'm still hammering out the details of my Digital Pedagogy Project (or DPP for short -- at least until I come up with a witty name), but I've decided that it will be an extension of Course Grind. I will create a series of short tutorial videos (under five minutes), and add a dash of cool photos and infographics as well. I'm hoping to curate all of this in an aesthetically-pleasing fashion on Learnist for everyone to enjoy (or judge with an eyebrow raised). Here are some of the topics I'm considering:
One of the most exciting discoveries I've made during my 20% project is the element of community that is present among the coffee professionals and enthusiast in San Diego. It’s been a pleasant surprise to find how open everyone has been to sharing their knowledge and passion with each other and with those who aren’t as connected (like me). Earlier this week, I attended my second Thursday Night Throwdown latte art competition, this time co-hosted by Young Hickory in the North Park neighborhood. (Check out my post about my first TNT adventure here.) Two of my friends who joined me, including Miss Stillman – check out her blog here! Since I had already been to a TNT, I could shift my focus from learning about the competition itself to observing and interacting with the people – which was good, because this event had a much bigger turnout than the last. My friends and I chatted with a few of the competing baristas, as well as some of the vendors who were there. Even though we didn’t know anyone personally, everyone was very warm and readily talked about their involvement in the coffee culture of San Diego. In addition to organized events, there are a number of groups that are centered on fostering fellowship among coffee drinkers. One such crowd that is becoming more established in the area is the San Diego Home Roasters Club, organized by the San Diego Coffee Network. This little group is open to anyone and everyone who is curious about roasting coffee beans at home (think the caffeinated equivalent to home beer brewing) or simply looking for good community. Seeing the many ways in which people reach out to each other (or to complete strangers) has been so inspiring. Not only are they passionate about coffee, they are actively investing themselves in so much of what coffee has come to symbolize in cultures and societies around the world: craft, connection, and community.
When I began my 20% project, Course Grind, I also began looking around for the best way to gather outside information into a single, easily-accessible place. I wanted to be able to collect and organize coffeehouses I planned to visit, infographics, links to helpful websites or blogs, and instructional videos. I also wanted to be able to added them quickly and categorize them as I saw fit. There are many tools that are handy for this type of content curation, including Scoop.it, Symbaloo, Feedly, and Diigo, just to name a few. My personal favorite curation tool is Pinterest, which consists essentially of digital cork boards each containing clippings or "pins" of photos, videos, or links. The site is widely used and well-known as a cyber Elysium for recreational crafters, meme lovers, and anyone planning a dream wedding (real or not real). However, in my opinion, Pinterest is actually underutilized as a more professional curation tool. It is easy sign up (all you need is an email address), and building boards, adding pins, or finding followers are all just a few clicks away. The layout is minimalistic and visually appealing; every pin has a picture, and each board has a cover photo signifying the topic. This makes the process of gathering, categorizing, and sharing info easy. Users add captions or tag other users to increase searchability, and each pin can be shared via Facebook and Twitter and can even be embedded into another website or blog page. This has made searching and gathering info related to my Course Grind project much easier and less time consuming. I can search the thousands of boards already related to coffee, or just add my own link for reference later. Pinterest also has a handy widget builder that can be added to images, websites, and blogs. The widget can be customized for a single pin, a board, or an entire profile. The size can be tailored as well. I sprung for the profile widget; check it out on the right sidebar of the blog page! Whatever your preferred curation tool is, be careful to not go overboard! It's important to remember that the whole point of content curation is to gather relevant information and display it in a simple, logical, efficient way. Nevertheless, find a site that works for you, and have fun! After a slight hiatus brought on by a nasty cold, I made a visit to Lofty Coffee Co. in Encinitas for a Course Grind mini-adventure. It's a great little coffee shop just off Highway 101 and Encinitas Boulevard, and definitely worth a stop if you're in the area. (In fact, do yourself a favor and visit Pannikin just north of there as well -- everyone needs a little caffeine crawl once in awhile, right?) Although they are planning to open up a roastery across the street in the near future, Lofty Coffee currently serves up fresh coastal vibes alongside great coffee from the WestBean coffee roasters. For this visit, I took the barista's advice and ordered the Ethiopian Dry Processed Guji Shakiso, a bean that is grown and harvested in southern Ethiopia where the soil is rich. A quick web search produced some history on this region and the dry-processed method: Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee: it is in the forests of the Kaffa region that Coffea Arabica grew wild. Coffee is "Bun" or "Buna" in Ethiopia, so Coffee Bean is quite possibly a poor anglicized interpretation of "Kaffa Bun". We consider Ethiopian coffees to be some of the best in the world, and extreme genetic diversity of the coffee shrub is certainly part of the reason why. Most of the coffee is either wet-processed - resulting in a vividly bright cup, with fruit and floral notes - or dry-processed with the fruit skin intact. The latter technique produces a very different, rustic fruited flavor profile, and with thicker body. (via Sweet Maria's) To really enjoy the full flavors of this single-origin coffee (i.e., not blended with beans from other regions), I ordered it brewed via AeroPress instead of the usual pour-over. To be honest, to my knowledge I'd never had AeroPress coffee, but the idea of brewing boiling hot liquid in a glass vacuum was intriguing, and I had nothing to lose. Some notable differences in the AeroPress method:
Lofty Coffee also boasts of the premium but painfully slow Kyoto-styled coffee, which is a cold-brew methods and used in iced drinks. While it might look like a setup fresh out of the lab of a mad scientist, it's hardly as exciting: water drips very slowly -- about 1 drop per 40 seconds -- through ground coffee and into a carafe. (This is opposed to the Toddy method, which I mentioned in my post here, in which the coffee is soaked anywhere from overnight to a full 24 hours.) This sort of no-heat, high-art coffee brewing yields some of the fullest, most flavorful coffee you might ever imbibe. Since I wasn't able to take my own video at Lofty Coffee, here's a quick intro to the AeroPress method: Aeropress from doubleshot - pražírna kávy on Vimeo. And in case your Czech is rusty... 17 g coffee = just under 3 TBSP coffee (fine ground, like table salt) 275 g water = 9 oz water 93-94 degrees Celsius = 199-201 degrees Fahrenheit = approx. 35 seconds off boiling 60 vteřin = 60 seconds = 1 minute káva = coffee mlýnek = grinder voda = water váha = scale filtry = filters (courtesy of Google Unit Converter and Google Translate)
One of my favorite discoveries so far in this 20% project is the San Diego Coffee Network (or SDCN). I stumbled upon this community of roasters, baristas, coffee aficionados, and all lovers of good java through Instagram, and I've really enjoyed learning about them and through them since. Their mission statement reads, in part: As a team, our goal is to build a network of individuals interested in elevating San Diego’s coffee culture through social, educational and competitive member-driven events accessible to all. Pretty cool. In keeping with their "social, educational, and competitive member-driven" events, the SDCN has begun hosting Thursday Night Throwdown (#SDTNT), a monthly latte art competition open to professional and amateur baristas alike. Although it's only in its first season, TNT is already a fun experience. A couple of friends and I stopped by last week's TNT at Solutions Espresso to check it out. Here's the promo video: After feasting on a crab cake sandwich from Devilicious Food Truck (best crab cake I've had in a while) and sipping some hot and cold brew coffees from locals The WestBean and James Coffee Co., we headed over toward the espresso bar to watch the Throwdown. It was super impressive -- just check out some of the photos below. TNT is set up in a bracket format, with two baristas going head-to-head at once and different pours being required in the various rounds of competition (because pouring steamed milk into 6-ounce cup is different than a 10-ounce one). Pours were judged on design, contrast, complexity, and overall drinkability appeal, meaning how much you'd want to sip it if it were served to you in a cafe. Oh, and it's all done free-hand. Coffee? Culture? Community? Check, check, and check. The next TNT is on March 20, 2014 from 7-9pm (details here). It's free. It's fun. There's food, coffee, beer, swag, and some mad latte art skillz. What more could you want for your Thursday night? Interested in learning more about the San Diego Coffee Network for yourself? Find them here: www.sdcoffeenetwork.com Twitter: @SDCoffeeNTWK Facebook: facebook.com/sdcoffeenetwork Instagram: @sdcoffeenetwork I stumbled upon a couple of videos on different brewing methods this morning. Here are two: the french press and the Chemex. Beautiful, simple, instructive, and inspiration for the weekend. Enjoy. a french press method from hufort on Vimeo. A Chemex Method from hufort on Vimeo. Today, I kicked off my Course Grid project with a visit to Bay Park Coffee. It's a relatively new shop that I discovered over Instagram. The two baristas were super nice and friendly, and happily answered my overly-general, poorly-formed questions about coffee brewing. They were about to give me some great info on methods I’d heard about but wasn’t familiar with. One, called V60 pour over, combines timing and weight measurement to create one of the most precise cups of coffee you can get. A ceramic cone-shaped dripper is placed on a stand over a decanter, and the decanter itself sits on a small scale. Add freshly-ground coffee (coarser than your average drip grind) to the thin paper filter and pour the hot water through. This method only take about 2.5-3 minutes, which isn’t bad considering the quality of the result. The downside is that everything influences the coffee, such as the rate of pour, and there are differing opinions as to the ideal ratio of grounds-to-water. Overall, this is a highly-regarded method of tasting coffees, especially single-origin beans (i.e., from one region). I also learned a bit more about cold brew coffee, which becoming an increasingly popular offering. BPC shared their brew process: using one pound of ground coffee for every gallon of water, add the grounds to a thin fabric filter and steep for a (mere) 22 hours. The result? Super flavorful, super smooth coffee concentrate that is perfect for iced drinks. Cold brew extracts all the best parts of the coffee bean without the use of heat, so it’s harder to over-extract (which results in more bitterness). The barista I spoke with actually created her own cold brew drink which I had the pleasure of trying. Known as the Choddy, it’s cold brew coffee mixed with chocolate milk and served over ice. Rich, creamy, and definitely packed with caffeine (around 500mg, versus about 75mg for a shot of espresso), the Choddy is probably not best for those who need to sleep any time soon – but it’s absolutely worth the heart palpitations. Some ideas/notes for upcoming outings:
Interested in checking out Bay Park Coffee for yourself? Find them here: http://bayparkcoffee.com/ Twitter: @bayparkcoffee Instagram: @bayparkcoffee |