It’s weird not to be sick.
I’m so used to something happening to me - be it sinusitis, ear infection, COVID whenever I visit Fukuoka, that being able to function normally, to smell and walk and cook and plan upon the first day of arrival when my daughter and wife are not, is such a *inhales* triumphant breath of fresh air.
I even arranged for coffee beans to be delivered to Chika’s home the day before we arrived, and as I was making my filter coffee with beans roasted from Kurume, I thought of Toshi from Market Lane who recommended the roasters to me.
I also thought of my promise to share Toshi’s translated book here ages ago.
Here’s what happened - it’s not happening.
Since Toshi was nice, I was nice - I asked for his permission to share my translation here, and Toshi with his niceness, thought he should run it through the original writer of the book.
The writer said no. Actually, the writer said ‘Do whatever you want’, which in Japanese terms, is as bad as it gets.
Legally speaking, there’s nothing stopping me from releasing the whole AI-translated book for educational purposes, but this is what you get for forgetting your own ‘never ask for permission; beg for forgiveness’ teachings.
The silver lining is he thought it’d be harmless to share a chapter.
So here goes.
I think the chapters about philosophy and taste, and his struggles, are the most important. You can find technical teachings anywhere, but self-reflecting opinion is what we’re here for. Some context will be lost, like how this book was written six years ago, for a Japanese audience, published monthly, and how cupping used to be free, but I’m generating content here, not being your comfort pillow.
And yes, I said ‘chapters’.
Forgive me, I beg you.
Please enjoy.
Introduction
Nice to meet you, my name is Toshiyuki Ishiwata. I am a roaster at a cafe called “Market Lane Coffee” in a town called South Yarra in Melbourne.
I first encountered coffee over a decade ago when I went to New Zealand on my first working holiday. At the cafe-restaurant where I was working as a kitchen hand, the chef said, “Toshi, do you want some coffee? I’ve gotten really good at it,” and brought me a latte. I thought, “Who cares who makes it, it’s all the same.” At that time, I had no interest in coffee and was drinking instant.
But the latte that the chef made for me was harmonious with milk and coffee and was very delicious. I wondered why it was so different. Even though the espresso machine and beans were the same as others, I wanted to know more about coffee and became more and more addicted. Seeing me like this, the chef said, “If you want to study coffee, Melbourne is good because there are lots of cafes and you can find work.” That’s it. That’s why I came to Melbourne. I was 28 years old at the time. Among many people who started working as baristas at the age of 16, it was a very late start. In addition to my poor English skills, there was no environment where Asians could thrive as baristas, so I thought it would be impossible with half-hearted feelings.
When I came to Melbourne, I first entered three restaurants as a kitchen hand for three months each. At every store, I said that I wanted to make coffee for the last two months if I worked hard as a kitchen hand for the first month, but only the second store let me touch the machine for just 15 minutes on the last day. During that time, I submitted resumes to over 150 stores, but none of them hired me.
I was finally able to work with coffee thanks to my barista school teacher who introduced me to various stores because he told everyone “Toshi is motivated.” From then on, I worked at small cafes and provided event espresso. I wanted to work at a cafe that values coffee quality, I heard that a new cafe-roastery was opening and went to see the owner. And at that store “St Ali”, I was hired as a barista.
Melbourne’s coffee culture was just beginning to shift from “commodity” using beans mass-produced on a commercial basis to “specialty” focusing on origin and quality, and St Ali’s owner Mark Dundon was the first person in Melbourne to spread specialty and start micro-roasting beans he purchased himself. He asked me if I would do it. At that time, I myself was interested in specialty and wanted to roast high-quality beans with my own hands. When Mark said that, I was really happy to remember that I could enter an unknown world.
After St Ali changed owners, I moved to Market Lane Coffee and am now working as a head roaster and quality control roaster, experiencing everything related to coffee centered on roasting. Occasionally I stand at the counter and make coffee as a barista. And once a year we visit farms and participate in bean procurement. And now for those who are entering this world from Japan, we continue our work without forgetting that we are Japanese.
What makes me glad about doing this job is when customers say “It was delicious” or “Thank you always” and when I drink delicious coffee myself, it makes me feel very happy all day long. That’s what we always want to provide.
11 grams of beans, 200 cc of water.
Cupping - using taste and smell to determine the quality of coffee.
My work is quality control, and to control quality, cupping is everything.
The amount of beans and water are always fixed: 11 grams of lightly roasted beans for cupping; 190-200 cc of water at over 90 degrees Celsius; The grind size is also fixed: similar to bean reviews at Cup of Excellence (COE) or cupping competitions.
When preparing, what I pay the most attention to is keeping conditions such as bean quantity, water quantity, and temperature constant. Only by cupping in a stable environment can each bean be evaluated. There are now machines that measure the concentration of coffee, which is convenient for inexperienced staff when cupping. However, we cannot rely solely on machines. It is important to have a sense of what is okay based on experience.
We usually do five or six types of beans at the same time. First, we smell the aroma in the “dry” state without pouring water, then pour water and wait for about four minutes. After four minutes, we “break” the beans floating on the surface with a spoon and bring our noses closer to the cup to check the aroma again. After breaking, we wait a little longer before starting tasting. Some people who are used to hot temperatures start at eight minutes, but I start at about fifteen minutes.
We scoop up the body of the coffee with a spoon and slurp it with a “sucking” sound. The purpose is to spray the body and spread the taste throughout the mouth. Some people don’t do this, but I have been doing it since I felt that I could capture the taste particularly well. We do not swallow the liquid but spit it out into a spit cup. Starting with the first bean, we put it in our mouth and spit it out quickly, getting our tongue used to it. Then, from about seventeen or eighteen minutes on, we start writing out each taste in detail.
There is a “chart” for coffee taste and aroma, with sweet, sour, bitter tastes on the left side of a colorful pie chart and nutty, fruity, chocolatey, floral aromas on the right side. Above all is the “positive” chart for good tastes. On the other hand, there is also a “negative” chart with bad tastes such as carbon or beef.
How one captures, evaluates, and expresses a certain taste varies greatly from person to person. Even if the same expression is used, there may be big differences between people. This is because even the same food can have completely different tastes depending on where it comes from. For example, when Japanese people think of tangerines, they usually think of sweet and rich *Unshiu Mikan*. But when I cup at Market Lane and express it as “mandarin,” it refers to strong citrus-scented ones sold in Melbourne. Understanding that there can be such differences within one expression is very important when cupping.
It is important to cup with different people from different countries with different food cultures and different professions from oneself for the same reason. In particular, food and fragrance experts such as sommeliers, chefs, pastry chefs, and perfumers have many references in their capture and expression of taste.
Unchanging environment. Changing senses.
At the cafe where I work as a roaster, Market Lane Coffee, we hold a free public cupping every Saturday, and many different people participate each time. Tourists, locals, and people in the same industry, regardless of age or gender.
Local Aussies, even if it’s their first time cupping, will say things like “This tastes like this” or “This one is like that.” I think this is due to the cultural differences in food, but it’s very common to those who are receptive to acidity and enjoy the taste of lightly roasted beans. I was surprised when an elderly couple participated and could distinguish the difference by saying “This is citrus acid.” These two people enjoyed and often frequented wine tasting.
Taste and smell, like other senses, are sensitive from birth for some people and not for others. When I was little, my sense of smell was so sensitive that it was unpleasant. Even when I felt a smell and complained about it, no one understood me often, and I thought I didn’t need this nose. But now it’s essential.
Like the wine-loving elderly couple, what you eat and drink on a regular basis also has a deep connection to appreciating coffee. Coffee tastes are often expressed in terms of nuts or fruits, but if you don’t eat those things regularly, you won’t know what they taste like. To express “cassis” taste, you have to have eaten cassis and remember its taste. Since I started eating muesli with dried fruits and nuts every morning, I’ve been able to understand it much better.
Taste can also be trained like music or sports by cupping frequently, consciously capturing and expressing the taste of coffee.
Cupping with others and learning from their expressions.
Being interested in different foods.
And being flexible rather than rigid in your own theory that “it has to be this way” is also very important.
When cupping in different environments such as farms or production areas, being flexible is especially important. Cupping at the production site is completely different from what I do almost every day at Market Lane. First of all, the freshness of the beans - the beans in the store are delivered by ship over 45-50 days, but the beans at the production site are just refined. The roasting method is different, as is the quality of water, grind size, and bean quantity. When cupping on my own, it’s important to create a “stable environment,” but on the contrary, in such a “different environment,” it’s important to be flexible with your own senses. If these beans are roasted at this freshness and this roast at Market Lane, they will probably taste different compared to here - you need to predict and evaluate that.
Even then, it can be difficult to capture the same taste. When I cupped in Brazil last August, the beans were so fresh that they smelled like fermentation at the processing plant. At first, I thought it would be difficult, but in the end, I was able to evaluate it properly. That was possible because of my experience at the Cup of Excellence in Brazil which I had participated in before.
Your daily physical condition is also important for capturing taste. If you have a cold or a hangover, your sense of smell and taste will be dulled. So health management is also an important part of my job. However, during pollen season, even I struggle.
If you’re in Melbourne, Toshi’s book can be purchased here. I don’t know, you can then ask for my bootleg translation. Or do what I did, use Google Lens to scan the text, then copy and paste everything to Bing Chat (which uses Chat GPT 4) for translation.
Market Lane used to offer roasting lessons with him, but I can’t seem to find it. His Insta feed shows he’s visiting coffee farms in Brazil, maybe that’s why. Perhaps we can organise a Soy Sauce, Sugar, Mirin group tour with him in the future. Hands up anyone?
🙋