Coffee Culture in the UUNET Software R&D Group

There was a strong tradition of brewing excellent coffee at the Research and Development Group that I had the privilege of running inside of UUNET/WorldCom. I ran this group starting in 1998, through 1999 and 2000, up until the time I quit the company in January of 2001. Heck, that tradition grew out the coffee culture that I helped to instill in the BSD web hosting unit and the operating systems development group when I worked in those areas as well.

Shortly after I left WorldCom, I was copied on a piece of email that attempted to document the state of the art in coffee brewing and related arcana for the R&D group, so that this vital knowledge would not pass from the collective consciousness of the company. Since then, of course, almost everybody that received the email has been laid off during one of the companies purges, or quit to find greener pastures elsewhere. And most importantly, the web site that might have documented this information has either been shutdown or access revoked to the general public.

In response, I am making that hard-won information available here. With these crucial nuggets of coffee wisdom and lore, you too can create excellent coffee with which to entice your employees. We used to have people from other parts of the company drop by to visit and drink the coffee, because it was that good. It didn't hurt that the so-called coffee that WorldCom made available in the kitchens was pretty nasty crap, too!

UUNET/WorldCom Software R&D Group: Coffee Tradition

Where do the beans come from?

The beans are generally ordered from Greenwell Farms. The ``normal'' stock of beans that are brewed is the 100% Kona Peaberry. It has a very consistent flavor and is forgiving when you brew too strong. We also tried the Kona Estate Reserve one time, which has a somewhat stronger flavor than the Peaberry.

How is the coffee stored?

The beans are stored in an airtight container to preserve freshness and to get the occasional hit of Kona-aroma. We only grind the beans as we need them, medium grind, using an actual burr grinder instead of one of those mini bean-cuisinarts. The grinder is alleged to produce a superior flavor to the chopping devices, mainly due to more consistent particle size in the resulting grind.

What kind of filters are used?

We use unbleached paper filters with a gold metal mesh filter as backup. The paper filter supposedly catches certain chemicals which might be in the water, and the metal mesh is there in the event of a paper filter failure. You might say this is filter over kill (Remember the R&D motto: ``No kill like over kill''), but we've had a couple filter failures which resulted in a lovely 100% Kona feng shui fountain. Now, if the paper filter breaks the coffee maker still "just works." Is there a theme here? I think so.

What kind of coffee maker is used?

We use a 12 cup Krups drip coffee maker and usually fill to about 13 as measured on the 1-12 scale on the pot. This coffee maker features the all-important automatic heater element cutoff, so that a forgotten pot of coffee left on overnight will not be allowed to start a fire!
In retrospect, this is probably what we should have changed about our brewing system. Using a good quality thermal caraffe and brewing directly into that would have been superior. Ahh, the advantages of hindsight.

How much grind do you use for a pot of coffee?

Numerous experiments with brewing strengths have yielded the following formula for use with the 100% Kona Peaberry. Results diverge from optimal for different coffees and below about 4 cups as measured on the side of the pot. Use the small conical (ah!! conical) black Krups scoop. Average coffee mug size is just under 2 cups, as measured on the coffee pot. Remember that the ``cups'' on a coffee pot are generally only 5 ounces in size.
number of scoops = 1 + ((number of cups) / 2)

Where are coffee discussions held?

Discussions on coffee, the need for it, and when to brew it, take place on the coffee zephyr instance. (zwrite -i coffee)

Kurt J. Lidl
lidl@pix.net
Last Updated: $Date: 2007/12/07 03:28:06 $