S3: Episode 3: Have You Ever Heard Of The Quaker Bean?
In this episode we take a look at the oddly named quaker bean. Find out just what a quaker bean is, how it affects your coffee’s flavour (hint: not in a good way) and why it is quite likely to be lurking in the coffee you’re drinking today. Along with one of my easiest hacks ever to improve the flavour of the coffee you drink at home, this week’s FACQ reveals how to spot potential quaker beans before you experience them in your brew.
Check out this image to help you spot a quaker bean!
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Hello and welcome to The Coffee Drinker’s Guide, a podcast for the coffee curious where I explore and explain the world of specialty coffee to make your daily coffee better and more satisfying.
I’m Angela Holder a coffee roaster and writer on a mission to fight back against bad coffee by giving you the knowledge you need to help you get good coffee and a happier (coffee) life in coffee-break sized episodes. So grab your coffee, pull up a chair and take a break…
In this week's episode we are exploring a type of coffee bean which is known as a quaker bean …and later I’ll be answering a question about how to spot quaker beans in your coffee…
Probably the very first coffee bean defect that newbie coffee professionals learn about is the quaker bean. It’s easy to spot in roasted coffee, is fairly mild in impact as defects go and is extremely common - even in specialty coffee, which technically shouldn’t contain them! The reason for why this particular type of defective bean became known as 'quaker' is lost in the mists of time. It’s almost certain that the term was coined in reference to the Quaker religion and while I’ve heard various possible explanations for the reason why it might have come about, no-one really seems to know for sure. If there is anyone who knows the true origin of the term I’d be really interested to hear it so feel free to let me know using the links in the show notes. But whatever its origin I’m willing to bet that nobody in the industry draws that connection today. So without further ado, lets get into what quaker beans are and how they affect your coffee…
Firstly quaker beans and the bean
The cause of quaker beans is very straightforward - they are simply the result of picking unripe coffee cherries. Immature cherries lack the sugars in their seeds that fully ripe cherries develop with the result that these beans do not turn brown when roasted. Quaker beans can occur in literally any coffee - you may even find one or two in the highest quality coffees - but they tend to be present in quantity in natural processed and lower quality coffees. The best way to avoid quakers in your coffee is to buy good quality washed or pulped natural coffees, as an important first step for these ways of processing coffee cherries into green beans for roasting is to immerse the freshly picked cherries in water. This should remove any unripe cherries from the batch because fully ripe, dense, cherries sink while the unripe, less dense, cherries float. They are then skimmed off and removed from the batch. Another way for producers to prevent quakers being included in the coffee in the first place is to only pick properly ripe cherries. This requires highly labour intensive hand picking and multiple passes across the coffee bushes over several days as the cherries ripen. Faster strip picking and mechanical harvesting machines will inevitably include unripe cherries in the harvest leading to more quakers in the coffee unless they are screened out, costing more time and money. So whichever way you cut it, if you want fewer quakers in your coffee, you need to pay more for it.
Next quaker beans and the taste
Quaker beans taste like peanut or burned popcorn and not at all like coffee. Their flavour can be mild and peanutty but more usually they taste like an earthy, dirty peanut. As long as the number of quaker beans are less than 10% of all the beans in a coffee they are generally not going to affect its taste too much - and in some coffees they can impart a pleasant nuttiness underlying the main flavours. But if you happen to get a few too many in a particular brew then the coffee will taste uncharacteristically unpleasant, bitter and astringent. So a coffee with quaker beans in it can add an exciting Russian roulette dimension to your daily brew as you play the game of will-you-or-won’t-you get the quaker in your cup!
Finally quaker beans and the brew
The main impact of quaker beans is on the flavour of your coffee rather than on the way it brews. That said, the presence of quaker beans in a coffee can potentially cause it to be inconsistent in flavour, popping up randomly as you brew your way through the packet. If you use whole bean coffee and are curious about the impact of quaker beans on a coffee’s flavour its worth picking these beans out of your coffee when you see them and putting them aside. When you have accumulated enough beans to brew a cup entirely from quakers, go ahead and compare its flavour to a brew without quakers. The difference in flavour can be eye opening. Knowing this as I do, I routinely pick out any beans that look dodgy before I grind my coffee for brewing. Believe me when I say that this is not a waste of beans!
And now its time for a Frequently Asked Coffee Question…
And this episode’s question is…
How can I tell if my coffee has quaker beans in it?
Luckily quaker beans are really easy to spot in whole bean roasted coffee. They are the random beans that look a lot paler than the rest, typically looking beige or very light brown in colour. To confirm that a pale looking bean is a quaker pick it out and have a chew on it - if it tastes like a peanut it’s a quaker bean. Unfortunately if you buy pre-ground coffee it is impossible to tell if your coffee has a few quaker beans in it just by looking at the grounds. But if your ground coffee has a lot of quakers in it the brew will have an astringent unpleasantly nutty flavour.
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coffee Drinker’s Guide and that was all about quaker beans. Did this make you check your coffee beans - and did you find one? Let me know on Instagram @thecoffeedrinkersguide, email me at thecoffeedrinkersguide@gmail.com or leave me a text message using the link in the show notes. In the next episode we are taking a look at the Cup of Excellence coffee competition in whose coffees you should never find a quaker bean! If you have never heard about the Cup of Excellence be sure to hit follow so that you don’t miss it when it drops to find out how the best coffees of a producing country’s crop are selected. If you have a friend who would also find this interesting please tell them about the show and rate and review this podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts to help other coffee curious people find the show too. Thanks to my executive producer Viel Richardson at Lusona Publishing and Media Limited. You can find him at lusonapub.co.uk. Until next time I’m Angela Holder thanks for taking your coffee break with me - the best way to tackle life is one coffee at a time and here’s to better coffee!
The Coffee Drinker’s Guide is a Blue Sky Coffee Project