Factual Story Telling

How Do You Drink Your Coffee?

We all order our favourite coffees, but do we actually know what they are comprised of?

Of course these are just 12 variants of coffee – we can progress all the way into wet and dry cappuccinos, ristretto, piccolo latte, half-caf and on and on; the list really is impressive!  

I’m always asked by my non-coffee friends what they should drink if they are just getting into coffee. While the drawing above does not entirely show it, the best one to drink would be a flat white (if you’re ordering in an Australian coffee shop). The reason being that milk to coffee ratio is the higher, as one shot of espresso in the cup is topped off with milk and very little foam, making it a milkier coffee. As such the coffee taste (with the usual brunt and bitter taste that is so common in poorly mad coffees today) is less prominent.

Traditionally I was always a long black drinker (i.e. an Americano), but coffee shops today seem to butcher the flavour. Even the really good and high end cafes with the best machines, baristas and beans can often produce coffees with undesirable flavours. While all coffees will experience these tasting notes, at least the sweetness (from properly textured milk that hasn’t been burnt!) can cover them, whereas a long black just seems to highlight them.

Flavour Profile Wheel

Funnily enough though, some coffee shops have taken to advertising what flavour profiles you’ll experience in your coffee. Honestly I think it’s a great idea; you’re educating the customer about what they’re going to taste and what’s good and bad. I just can’t stand it when someone mindlessly words off flavour profiles without knowing what they’re talking about, nor do I appreciate it when someone rhymes of statements such as “the back of pallet acidity will mellow out and the front pallet sweetness will conjure up flavours of chocolate covered strawberries with rough saltiness”… yes, believe it or not, a shop owner has said something very similar to me!

Amiss are the days when you could just drink a coffee and describe it as tasting like coffee. But is it really that bad that we are becoming more discerning with our taste? On the whole, I think not.

Overall it comes down to the individual. Most of use can’t taste the difference between a really good coffee and simply an average one, let alone the individual taste profiles… however, it’s always good to informed when it comes to making your choices. Why keep drinking that burnt coffee when there are so many cafes trying to produce the best coffee for their customers at the same price?

Latte Art Awesomeness

After my previous blog on latte art I went on the search for some fantastic latte art. The first website I came upon was Rate My Rosetta. While not world champion material, they do show some awesome rosettas, tulips and hearts.

Though what I really wanted to see was how the world’s best do it. Chris Loukakis, the 2011 World Latte Art Champion, has some amazing videos on Youtube showing how he does what he does best.

Looks easy doesn’t it? Wrong! This stuff is extremely difficult and the World Latte Art Championships is one of the main reasons latte art has taken off and latte artists have progressed into doing some crazy patterns.   

Let’s just look at how far latte art has progressed in 4 years. Jack Hanna, the 2007 world champion, was doing some truly cool patterns at the time; rosettas, fire breathing pac-man, tulips, hearts and mixes of the basic patterns in regular cups all quickly and at a world standard level. But comparatively to Chris’s video before we already see a vast difference.

So what are judges in the championships now looking for? Each competitor must do a latte, macchiato and designer pattern which are marked (with multiplier weighting) as follows by the visual judges:

Two patterns and presented picture identical (0 if no picture presented) (0-6 pts) x 2

Contrast between ingredients (0-6 pts)

Harmony, size and position among patterns within cups (0-6 pts)

Successfully achieved level of difficulty (0-6pts) x 2

Visual Foam Quality (0-6pts) x 2

Overall appealing look (0-6pts) x 4

On top of this, baristas need to have technical excellence to substantiate their latte art skills, which constitutes one third of their final mark!

I could watch these latte artists for hours on end still in awe, but let me show you one last picture.

This was done by the 2011 and 2012 Queensland Latte Art Champion – a 13 part tulip. A Queensland competitor, who consequently went on to be 3^rd in Australia in 2011, is already pulling out patterns which the 2007 world latte artist at the time could not produce, let alone with the contrast, symmetry and positioning in the cup. The world of latte art is surely looks bright, especially for the Australian baristas! 

Good 'Ol Public Media

Nigel Milan - rocking the bow tie!

The difference between commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting is the difference between consumers and citizens

– Nigel Milan

So what is the role of public media? While formerly public media was wholly associated with tax-payer funding, today public outlets can operate for profit as long as the ultimate purpose is to serve the public. According to the WGBH Educational Foundation Conference on open content and public broadcasting, the primary mission of public media is to serve or engage a public.

To serve or engage the public – sounds a tad ambiguous to me. No worries, our lecture content broke it down more. It is Media that is in support of public and democratic processes and should have public value.

Right, that totally makes more sense… but just to clarify, how does the BBC breaks down “public value”?

1. Embedding a ‘public service ethos’

2. Value for licence fee money

3. ‘Weighing public value against market impact’

4. Public consultation

Perhaps we need to be more pedantic in our definition.... The Broadcasting Research Unit 1985 further breaks down public service:

- Geographical universality.

- Universality of appeal.

- Special provision for minorities, especially disadvantaged minorities.

- Sense of national identity and community.

- Distanced from all vested interests, and in particular from those of the government of the day.

- Universality of payment.

- Encourage competition in good programming rather than competition for numbers.

- Liberate rather than restrict broadcasters.

Finally, a definition we can stand by. In fact, a very altruistic sounding goal, but can a media outlet actually maintain this integrity when we are commercialising our public media?

Australia's public media forms 

Unquestionably, public media, in the form of ABC and SBS, produces a higher standard of media information than commercial media (though often very underfunded in its production). 41% of Australians get their news from ABC, but does that mean we should continue endorsing the News CAFF and opinionist style of news some public media channels are producing?

In my opinion, I actually think that shows like the Drum and other opinion based shows provide for greater discussion opportunities in society. For me, discussion and debate are the underlying factors of a democracy and we should be encouraging well informed and opinionated individuals to promote and engage audiences.

So what are the challenges? Commercial media only needs to satisfy advertisers and consumers to make a profit. For public media, their role is to scrutinize the government (where they get their funding from) as well as keep the audiences happy. I can’t help but wonder, who ultimately decides the content?

Obviously public media has to maintain a higher level of journalistic integrity but we can still see some bias in their reporting. The 7:30 report always puts editorials spins to it and on most news shows the opposition party (i.e. Liberals) are questioned more vehemently then the government – at least that’s what I see from an outsider perspective.

Undoubtedly, Jeremy Paxman’s approach to media is one we should all adopt:

I am always asking myself, “Why is this lying bastard lying to me?”

… an approach we may need to hold dearer as public media further becomes the underfunded poor cousin of commercial media.

Aesthetically Pleasing

Unquestionably, as individuals, we put an emphasis on the aesthetics; the better it looks the more we are drawn to it. Of course we eventually realise that the substance matters, but there’s no denying that we (at least initially) rate pretty things better.

Aesthetics are also important when it comes to coffee – the nicer the presentation the better we think it is. So what constitutes a good looking coffee?

In the coffee world baristas pride themselves on latte art, the illustrations on top of the milky coffees. This is done by the mixing of two colloids; the crema of the espresso and the microfoam of the textured milk. There are two ways to produce this: free pour and etching.

Let’s first look at etching. This is where baristas use other utensils to manipulate the pattern within the foam after the milk has been poured. This includes the use of sticks/metal equivalents, syrups, chocolate powder and even colouring to achieve artistic results. Some of the works can be very intricate and even show great artistic ability as can be seen below.

Using chocolate syrup and utensils

Etch of John Lennon - very artistic!

The other way is free pouring. This is where the barista pours a pattern straight away when pouring the textured milk into the shot of coffee. This is done by either keeping the cup level or on a tilt and the barista pouring the milk in a wiggle or back-and-forth motion of the jug, allowing the textured milk to separate into the drier foam and liquid milk, thus forming latte art… at least that’s the simplified method barring the in-depth scientific analysis of colloids.

There are three basic patterns that free pour latte artists create; the heart, rosetta and tulip.

6 part tulip

Heart

Rosetta

So which method is better? Often people argue that there is great skill in doing free pour as it takes greater manipulation and understanding of the milk. Furthermore, you only have one chance to get it right, whereas with etching you can go back and “edit” (so to speak) the art on the coffee. Personally speaking, having tried to do free pour, it is very difficult to get a pattern with good symmetry, contrast and presence in the cup…. Also I just don’t like the idea that someone has been messing with my coffee and using utensils for over a minute trying to make it look pretty. Just free pour it and send it out!

Having said that, having a coffee with latte art doesn’t necessarily mean it will be a good cup of coffee. Baristas have taken note that aesthetically pleasing coffee can attract customers and as such have placed an emphasis on this. But that is another issue – another blog maybe…

 So next time you get a latte or a flat white, take a look at the art. If there’s nothing on your coffee really think about how good it is. If there is latte art, is it really a good cup of coffee, or is it just pretty? 

Commercial Media - All Aboard!

In media today there are two different outlets: public and commercial. This week we examined the commercial strand of media through mediums including TV, radio, newspaper, magazines and the new digital methods.

So why do we have commercial media? Well companies want to make money, and the easiest way to advertise is when you’ve got your audiences’ eyes and ears at your full command. The larger the market share your media outlet commands, the more you can charge the advertisers – a simple economics supply and demand model.

Advertisers are the real customers of a commercial media organisation, not its readers, viewers or listeners.

Commercial media is like any other business, whereby its success is dependent on the audiences it can generate, and the revenue and profit it can make through selling advertising. So who are the major players in this media battlefield? 

It was interesting to break down just what media outlets each of these overarching companies controlled, and as such their approach to attracting different social groups for advertising. However, the crux of this lecture was about form and function.

The form of commercial media can be broken into three sub-categories; subscription, sponsored and subsidised. These include channels such as Foxtel, regular free-to-air channels and government subsidised channels respectively. The function can also be broken down into three sub-categories being commercial, propaganda and social. These include Ausradio, Fox News and Living Local respectively.

According to the Hutchins Commission, the social responsibility of the media in a democracy is to:

1. a truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning;

2. a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism;

3. the projection of a representative picture of the constituent groups in the society;

4. the presentation and clarification of the goals and values of the society;

5. full access to the day’s intelligence.

However, can we ever really guarantee that commercial media will fulfil this responsibility when profiteering is so lucrative? In Australia we’ve got formal state requirements, legal prescription, and state oversight to control media actions, as well as statutory and voluntary bodies to ensure adherence to the media’s social responsibility. As such we see an “ethical wall” between editorial content and the commercial side of media – well that’s the idea anyway!

But what is the problem with commercial media? Well to put it bluntly, most people in society don’t want the hard hitting news. People would rather engage in tabloid news than to hear an in-depth analysis on what’s happening in Syria or with the Greek riots. Moreover locals really don’t care about politics until they think the government’s trying to take their money or tell them what they can and can’t do.

So where is commercial media heading? We see a large decrease in advertising spending on the traditional media forms as society shifts their attention to the web. Nonetheless, of the top 10 news websites, seven are commercially owned, as such we see still a huge sphere of influence from these commercial outlets.

The most exciting thing I discovered thanks to this lecture was the Global Mail. Not only does this form of commercial media go against the critique of commercial “Mickey Mouse” news but it also shows that not all commercial media outlets are profiteering business men with hidden agendas…. Or at least this one is exceptionally good at hiding it.

Coffee According to Kelsy

We all drink it. We all love it. We all start our day with – coffee. Yes the other black gold that men and women fight over and which is now the second highest traded drink commodity after tea.

When it comes down to it, we all have our preferences. Some like the high end, elite, single origin coffee with the newest brewing methods including cold drip, drip filter and aeropress which all set you back around $6 per cup (yes, that’s right, $6 per cup). Others just prefer a good cup of coffee with the more familiar sounding flat white, cappuccino, latte, long black, etc. Then of course, there are those who just have instant – but really, if you drink instant you can’t consider yourself a proper coffee drinker!

I myself am an avid coffee drinker , and I like to consider myself somewhat of a connoisseur. With my family active in the coffee scene I cannot reduce myself to drinking bad chain-store coffee (sorry Starbucks, that includes you and your delicious cinnamon scrolls), nor can I simply just drink a coffee anymore.

When a coffee arrives I have numerous questions thrown at me – what’s the latte art like? Is the milk foamed appropriately? Is the coffee burnt? What is the flavour profile? Is it under or over extracted? Is there too much acidity?... and the list continues.

Only one thing is certain about coffee.... Wherever it is grown, sold, brewed, and consumed, there will be lively controversy, strong opinions, and good conversation.~Mark Pendergrast

Coffee used to be the faucet for discussion and debate over social and political issues between great men and women, but now we see a growing trend for coffee itself is the ethos of discussion. While sitting here drinking my morning coffee I already ask myself many questions about this amazing beverage, and as such I’ll devote this blog (with the occasional lecture content interruption) to looking at coffee in general.

For now though, let’s get this caffeine kicking in!

Thank You for Listening

Ideally I would have loved to present this blog purely in audio form, however my severe lack of technical ability limits this over blogger. To be honest, coming into this lecture I expected some sort of sensory deprivation experiment showing the benefits of presenting from purely an audio standpoint, as such, I was surprised (perhaps let down) that it was just two interviews with radio presenters – albeit very insightful interviews (especially the one done by my tutor Carmel – ace job for sure!).

During the course of this lecture, the main things discussed were the differences between radio and other forms of media, as well as the optimal way to get the most out of your interview source.

With radio, the audience is usually listening to it in the background while multi-tasking or alternatively to stay up-to-date in a relaxing manner. Unlike other media forms, radio seems to be very personalised; almost as if the interview or discussion topic being presented is directed at the listener. As such, the radio content shouldn’t be about what the presenter wants to talk about, it’s what the audience wants to hear, with the presenter merely a facilitator between the audience and the guest on the radio show.

The most important part of radio, like most other forms of media, is the pre-production. There are no images or visual stimulants to detract attention when the conversation dries up so the interviewer must know what ask and how to get his subject to open up and respond – to me this sounds a lot easier said than done! This comes down to making the subject feel safe and comfortable, or alternatively on talk back radio, posing simple questions to evoke a response from the audience.

As was heard in the lecture, people don’t necessarily just want facts and rationality, they want emotion. Sensory deprivation allows us to interpret the subtleties in the human voice; we can connect with the emotions of someone we’re listening to and even interpret dishonesty simply through the radio – and when that fails, silence can be more powerful than words in any situation.

Contrary to what I thought, radio is doing fairly well compared to most other traditional media forms. With increases in podcasts and social networking, radio is still a force to be reckoned with in the growing pool of information sources. Is radio something I want to get into? Probably not – no one wants to hear my watered-down American accent for longer than they have to!

Life in the Moment

"A picture has no meaning at all if it can't tell a story."
Eetu Silanpaa

Picture stories are everywhere – on magazines, newspapers, TV, movies, billboards, graffiti, phones and even our money. I can’t help but wonder though, why do we pay so much more attention to picture stories in society than traditional written media?

As we saw in our week 4 lecture, stories have been told in images since the stone ages and have progressed all the way through religious drawings and stain glass windows, newspaper drawings to photographs, movies, TV and now even immediate capture and upload through our smart phones. As we progress through society the quality of pictures has become better and better as our technology further progresses; sadly, we now focus so much on what is in the picture that real images are not good enough.

This Dove commercial sums up our demand for perfection. Why be you when you can be younger, thinner, prettier and impossibly perfect?

Of course photo journalism isn’t all bad. Photos capture the moment and give us a sense of being there. The addition of photo galleries to online news articles allow us a deeper understanding, especially when it came to describing events such as the London riots or the ongoing rebellion in the Arab Springs countries.

So what does it take to make a good photo? I could tell you, theoretically, that you need framing, focus, angle & point of view (POV), exposure (or light), timing (shutter speed) and an all-round capturing “The Moment” feel, but what’s the point in telling you when I can show you?

Describing the September 11 attacks will never do the atrocity justice, or accurately emote the feelings I felt as I lived in America and watched these images live on TV. While we may forget why these attacks happened in the jumble of the war on terrorism , these images will live with all of us for a life time.

‘History decays into images, not stories’
Walter Benjamin