Alerted by Caffeine Magazine (on Twitter) to the opening of the second branch of Everbean, we arranged a quick visit into central London. A fair few had beaten us there. Initially, it seemed that the cafe was quite small with limited seating but a sign on the staircase pointed us to an entire area downstairs. Although there are tall stool-type seats upstairs fronting the window, there are more chairs and cushion backed bench seats downstairs (together with a comfy arm chair but more on that later). Downstairs was clearly the place to be on that day and is certainly a comfortable space for enjoying your coffee. As you enter, the counter upstairs is quite large and features a number of tempting cakes. Too tempting. Together with my Americano, I enjoyed a delicious vegan mandarin and chocolate cake.
Downstairs could be described as cosy. Cushions with birds embroidered onto them line the bench running down one side wall. A bookshelf with an eclectic collection of books is in the corner of the room next to the arm chair, suggesting a great (phone-free) way of spending an afternoon. I would share with you some of the titles but in some ways, that would be to judge the books by their cover (titles). Which in some way connects with the thought train that we encountered here at Everbean.
On the wall behind us a lattice effect mirror reflected the room to itself. The lattice was painted but bits of paint had aged leading to rust and corrosion effects on the metal lattice work. Age, in the form of oxygen and moisture, affecting metal work in a similar way to how age affects the flavour of coffee. At this point, my thought train at the time went towards the ways in which different materials oxidise and the use that this can be put to. But a different thought train occurred to me when I started to think about this cafe later as I came across Brian’s Coffee Spot’s thoughts on coffee bean storage and specifically, should you ever store your beans in the freezer.
After reading Brian’s Coffee Spot, doing a little bit more reading about it online and then sitting back and actually thinking about it, I realised that I had perhaps been hasty. Is there still time to change my mind now I know more about the issue? We need a second vote!
But reading about the issues of freezing coffee beans also alerted me to a study that had been done a couple of years ago about the effect of the temperature of the coffee bean on grind size. The question was, when we grind coffee, does the temperature of the bean matter?
To test this question the authors subjected batches of 20g of coffee beans to two hours of four different temperatures: liquid nitrogen (-196C), dry ice (-79 C), freezer temperature (-19C) and room temperature (20C). Following this, the beans were immediately ground using a Mahlkonig EK43 grinder. They found that, under otherwise identical grinding conditions, the colder beans showed a smaller grind size and a reduced particle size distribution.
The authors of the study suggested their results as a possible explanation for the need in many coffee shops to tune the grinder to a closer grind size as the day progresses: they argued that the beans are warming up while sitting in the hopper on the grinder and that this results in a change in the way that they grind. They also suggested a possible long term solution for the storage of coffee beans: liquid nitrogen. Just a little bit colder than a freezer.
Which takes us a long way from the basement at Everbean on Seymour Place. Or does it? Perhaps you need to take some time out and sit in the armchair, questioning and investigating your perspective.
Everbean (2) is at 21 Seymour Place, W1H 5BH