작년 말 새로운 신간을 eBook 형태로 출간한 스캇 라오의 인터뷰입니다. 최근 추세가 되고 있는 Matt Perger 를 필두로 한 Coffee Shot에 대한 스캇 라오의 견해가 흥미롭습니다. 또 다른 새로운 저서를 집필 중이라고 하니 기대가 되지 않을수 없네요.

Scott Rao needs no introduction for most of our readers. His landmark book The Professional Barista’s Handbook has influenced the current generation of coffee professionals perhaps more than any other single resource.  His books have been formative for our own coffee education, so we were excited for the opportunity to ask him a few questions.  

You recently published your third book on coffee, Espresso Extraction. What motivates you to write?

I wrote my first book because I had some free time after selling a business and had always been frustrated as a barista that there were no good resources for learning. After 14 years of full time work owning cafes, I felt I was ready to contribute to the industry’s knowledge base, and spent a few months educating myself in the local university’s physics library before writing the professional barista’s handbook.

What coffees have you been excited about drinking lately?

Unfortunately, I don’t drink too many coffees for pleasure these days. I try to limit myself to drinking what people send me when they need help with their roasting. For pleasure, I usually drink tea so that I don’t consume too much caffeine. (I’m really excited about a Fukamushi Sencha I’ve been drinking this month, if that helps!)

A lot of recent discussion about the science of brewing coffee has been driven by more people using refractometers. How have using total dissolved solids (TDS) and extraction percentages as a metric changed the way we brew coffee?

It’s been a long time coming, finally having an objective indicator of brewing results. For the first few years it was around, many baristi balked at using the coffee refractometer, as they seemed threatened by it. Thankfully, it’s now almost universally embraced and it’s helping baristi discover how extraction levels correlate to flavor, what extractions they prefer, and how to improve their brewing consistency.

What’s your idea of a perfect cafe? Do you have a cafe in mind that embodies this ideal?

Although people associate me with geeky, scientific coffee preparation, when I go to a cafe, what I care most about is customer service, a friendly staff, and a convivial or comfortable atmosphere. It’s rare that I really enjoy the coffee served in cafes, so I mostly seek out cafes for their atmosphere and service. I’m hesitant to name one particular cafe, I hope you understand.

Do you have an opinion about the “coffee shot” trend? Should we be using espresso machines to brew filter strength coffee? 

최근의 커피샷에 대한 트렌드에 대해 어떤 견해를 가지고 있습니까? 브루잉 농도 수준의 커피를 추출하기 위해 에스프레소 머신을 써야만 할까요?

I’m not a fan. I experimented with coffee shots about 10 years ago and found their extraction uniformity was lacking. In an auto drip brewer, for instance, the grounds and liquid dwell together and mix in a slurry, and the uniformity is pretty good. In a coffee shot, the top layers of grounds always get hit by the extraction water before the lower layers do, so there is a stratification of extraction levels throughout the coffee bed. The top will always extract more than the bottom. That unevenness is tasteable in the cup and limits my enjoyment of such a brew. There are much better ways to prepare a single-cup brew.

난 커피샷의 팬은 아닙니다. 난 근 10년 전부터 커피샷을 실험 해왔고 커피샷은 균일성이 부족하다는 것을 알았습니다. 자동 드립 머신을 예로 들면, 커피 입자와 액체는 현탁액 상태로 함께 뒤섞여 있습니다. 그리고 균일성은 꽤 좋구요. 커피샷은 상단부 커피층이 항상 하단부 커피층보다 먼저 추출수에 노출됩니다. 그 때문에 커피 층에 있어 추출 정도도 계층화되죠. 상단부는 항상 하단부보다 추출이 많이 일어나게 됩니다. 그 불균형은 맛으로 인지가능하며 결국 브루잉 커피로 즐기는데 제한점으로 나타납니다. 싱글 컵 브루잉을 준비하기 위한 더 좋은 방법들이 훨씬 많습니다. 

Your focus on the barista and the process of brewing coffee shows intense research and is considered authoritative in most coffee circles. Do you have any plans to write a book on roasting or any other part of the coffee supply chain?

Yes. I’m working on a book right now that I’m very excited about and I think will cause quite a stir.

When you’re not writing authoritative tomes on our favorite beverage, what do you do with your time?

I like to read, I practice yoga every day, I love to surf and am always happiest when I’m traveling.

About Scott Rao

“When I began in the coffee business in 1992, I read every book I could find about coffee. However, after reading all of those books I felt as if I hadn’t learned much about how to make great coffee. My coffee library was chock-full of colorful descriptions of brewing styles, growing regions, and recipes, with a few almost-unreadable scientific books mixed in. I would have traded in all of those books for one serious, practical book with relevant information about making great coffee in a cafe. Fourteen years later, I still hadn’t found that book, so I decided to write it myself. These books are my attempt to give baristas what I had been missing all of those years.” – Scott Rao

출처 : 커피컴퍼스