Percolator Has Fallen: The Rise of the Macchiatos

Boston tea and coffee merchants Caleb Chase and James Sanborn established their brand in 1862, and were the first to ship roasted coffee in sealed cans. Their vacuum-packed coffee (above) became available in 1947. Brothers Earnest, Austin and Reuben Hills founded their coffee company in 1878 and packed their coffee in 1900, in cans marked by a “drinking Arab taster” design. The two companies merged in 1984.

Percolate – from Latin percolo (“I filter”), from the verb percolare, from per (“through)+ colare (“to strain”); to cause a solvent (i.e., water) to pass through a permeable substance (i.e., coffee grounds) especially for extracting a soluble constituent

408707 – the number of the US patent for the first modern stove-top percolator granted to Illinois farmer Hanson Goodrich in 1889. Percolators fell into disuse in the 1970s with the introduction of the electric drip coffee maker, which utilized the force of gravity by passing hot water through the grounds placed in a holder with a filter until it seeps into a pot. Filter drip brewing was invented back in 1908 by Melitta Bentz.

There was a time in the untroubled and insouciant days of old when one could put water into the bottom of an aluminum coffee chamber, and, measuring scoops of coarse coffee grounds from a Chase & Sanborn tin can, pour them into a basket-like metal strainer at the top.  The apparatus was covered and placed on an electric stove, and heated water was gradually forced up a tube connected to this strainer into its perforated lid, thence seeping through the coffee grounds and flowing back into the bottom in a continuous brewing cycle.  A glass valve atop the pot stopped perking if the overall temperature was nearing 100 C, and one removed it from the heat source – “Coffee boiled is coffee spoiled,” as an old Turkish saying supposedly went. It would then be time to decant the simmering brownish liquid from the percolator and serve coffee.  A few drops of Liberty evaporated filled milk enhanced the flavour even more.

Liberty Evap competed with Darigold, Klim, Milkmaid and Dutch Baby in the 1950s. Liberty was to be eventually acquired by Alaska, along with Alpine and Krem-Top, but today, it has evaporated from supermarket shelves.

Those French-made Duralex cups (from the Latin phrase “Dura lex, sed lex,” or “The law is harsh, but it is the law”) from whence we sipped our brew were so unbreakable that salesmen at the basement of Oceanic Commercial along Escolta would routinely slam them against each other to demonstrate their durability.

In our old apartment at 153-B Mayon Street in La Loma, Sunday repasts in the late Fifties were punctuated by such coffee.  A breakfast of fried eggs (“estrellado,” or sunny side up), “Royal” Vienna sausage (that most assuredly didn’t come from Vienna), pan de sal from Long Life Bakery along nearby Retiro Street and the ubiquitous Puto Pulo (in puti, pula and kutsinta varieties) procured from itinerant vendors at the entrance of Lourdes Church, was topped with percolated Chase & Sanborn coffee, then available only from the PX stores like those at Sangley Point, the US naval base in Cavite City.  Coffee would be poured on vari-coloured Duralex cups and saucers that matched the breakfast plates, and at 5 years old, I began a flirtation with java that would henceforth turn into a lifelong obsession.

As the shadows of the post-war years gave way to the 1960s, soluble coffee slowly took the place of percolated brew.  Nestle had developed instant coffee as early as 1938, when eight years of research following the surplus of Brazilian bean production in 1930 – and the collapse of the world coffee market – produced a nectar that could be prepared conveniently, expediently and with the barest of equipment.  Café Puro, Café Exelente and Café Bueno, first purveyed as roasted coffee beans by Commonwealth Foods, Inc., joined the instant coffee bandwagon, and the percolator simmered down to its inglorious end.  As metal containers yielded to glass, coffee makers increasingly packaged their merchandise in bottles that could double as drinking mugs or crystal-like cups.  Percolating was hardly a complicated method, but instant coffee reduced brewing to a simple, inexpensive and unadulterated process.

Commonwealth Foods, Inc. commenced roasting its Café Puro and Café Exelente ground coffees in 1952. The three-step instructions at the back for brewing using the percolator method were both terse and succinct: 1) Clean coffee maker thoroughly, 2) Boil water vigorously. 3) Percolate then reduce heat to a simmer.

Enter the 1990s – Figaro opens up its first kiosk at Ayala Center in 1993, and Bo’s follows suit at Cebu in 1996. In 1997, Starbucks descends upon Philippine shores and sets up the first of today’s over 150 outlets at the ground floor of fashionable 6780 Ayala Avenue, and coffee culture undergoes a seismic jolt.  San Francisco Coffee (at Libis in 1997), Seattle’s Best (at E. Rodriguez Avenue in 2000), Gloria Jean’s, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and UCC Cafe all sprout in the metropolis as well.  With Starbucks, a new lingo was born – suddenly, plain black coffee was boring, and espressos, ristrettos, cappuchinos, machiattos, lattes, Americanos and frapuccinos ruled the day. Baristas flaunted cutting-edge concoctions and terminologies, along with disdainful raised eyebrows, and every order had to be precise and bespoke – you start with cup size (tall, grande, venti or even the 30-oz trente in some markets), state your milk preference (soy, skim, 2% low-fat, breve or skinny), and indicate foam quality (wet, dry or none).  Know what “quad” means?  That’s four shots of espresso.  Upside down?  That’s pouring the caramel first, instead of last, in a caramel macchiato.  Half caf?  That’s equal parts of regular and decaf espresso.  And customers proved more than equal to the task – one urban legend says that the longest-named Starbucks drink ordered by possibly the most obnoxious and entitled coffee imbiber in Montana back in 1997 was a double ristretto venti half-soy non-fat decaf organic chocolate brownie iced vanilla double-shot gingerbread frapuccino extra-hot with foam whipped cream upside down double blended with one sweet n’low and one nutrasweet.  The fact that a frapuccino could not conceivably be extra-hot, nor that a double ristretto venti was unnecessarily redundant (all ice ventis, at 24-oz capacity, have double ristrettos, duh), seemed to have been lost on that vainglorious quaffer.

From Left to Right (1)With battlefield-weary Allied troops needing caffeine to keep them awake and sharp, Nestle launched a brilliant strategy to supply the US Army with instant coffee that could be mixed with hot water even in the trenches. Landing in the shores of Leyte in 1943, American servicemen were the first ambassadors of Nescafe to Philippine soil. (2&3) Cafe Puro produced decorative drinking glasses in the late 1960s, with a varied selection of colorful and stylized Philippine folk-dance designs. Difficult to complete a full set even at that time, these glasses have become a collectible for fans of coffee ephemera.

These days, a third wave of specialty coffee shops has launched their own invasion.  Independently run, the focus is on brief beverage menus, freshly roasted single-origin beans, often stark design shop aesthetics, and precision-sharp extraction techniques.  Sugar is frowned upon – why ravage the coffee that nature has so lovingly created with sweetener?  Whether pour-over (or hand-brewed), AeroPress, French press or espresso, scientific parameters are used to brew the perfect cup.  Call them snobs, call them geniuses of grind – these Brewmeisters take their infusion seriously.  Consider the meticulous directions for the pour-over method:

1. Heat water at a temperature between 92c and 97c.  Never, ever, approach boiling
   

   To guarantee the exactness of your measurements – weight, ratios, temperature and brewing time – you need to place the pour over apparati on top of a stylishly precise “Hario” drip scale, which will set you back by a small fortune.

   point. Then pour it into a metal kettle with a swan-neck spout.

2. Measure (as in, use a measuring cup with gradations, not your brilliant approximation) 25-30 grams of beans and grind on the spot, using a scale between fine and medium, producing a coarseness close to that of sea salt.
3. Place an oxygen-bleached paper filter bag into the ceramic or glass filter holder, and initially saturate it with the heated water to eliminate the potential papery taste, as well as to warm up the carafe below.
4. Empty the now-warm carafe, place back beneath the filter holder, then pour the grinds and give an ever so gentle shake to settle them down into a flattish bed for a more even pour.
5. Starting at the center, allow water to trickle in concentric fashion (see now why you need a kettle with a swan-neck spout?), and stop at about 50 grams.  Gaze lovingly and observe the coffee bloom (that’s barista-speak for “expand”) for some 30-45 seconds.
6. The continue pouring water delicately, even beautifully, into the slurry, avoiding the filter walls, and occasionally stirring the brewing mass.  Stop.  Then pour once more, hesitate just a bit, then pour yet again, ensuring that the entire process takes about 2.5 to 3 minutes.  Your magnum opus is ready.
7. Remove the filter holder, pour the potion into a cup (not a mug, please!), and luxuriate in your libation as you savour the complex aroma and floral notes, and simultaneously marvel at your command of coffee brewing.

This is most assuredly NOT coffee making for the faint of heart – those who have to catch the 6:45 am FX going to work, or have to bring the kid to the car pool.  And neither is drinking at one of these upscale specialty cafes.  Each sip there is an individual journey in appreciating the bean-to-cup transmogrification, and if you have neither the time nor the panache, I suppose you’ll just have to endure the Kopiko or Jimm’s 3-in-1 sachet at the office pantry.

When Kaldi, the Ethiopian goatherd, first discovered the coffee cherry in the rugged mountains of Abyssinia in the 6th century, he didn’t have the slightest inkling that modern man’s relationship to the bean would ever be……complicated.

(L) Unidentified coffee aficionado casts a furtive glance as paparazzi interrupt his libation. (R) Notorious non-coffee drinker Amie was content to smell the aroma and otherwise watch her mate drink his fill of joe.