28-year-old World Coffee Brewing Champion Wang Ce Reveals: The Person Drinking the Coffee Matters Most
“What matters most is the person drinking that cup; a brewer must always start from the drinker's point of view.”
— Wang Ts'e, 2017 World Brewers Cup Champion
Coffee is second only to oil in global trade volume, making it nothing less than the NBA of agricultural products. Whenever there is a competition, professionals and fans from all over the world pay attention, just as an NBA game requires forwards, centers and guards to work together to play one good game after another. Taiwan's coffee, with an annual output of only 841 metric tons, may look like a speck of dust compared with other countries, but in recent years, as professionals in every link have devoted themselves wholeheartedly, Taiwan has repeatedly stood out in international competitions across roasting, brewing, latte art and cupping, making coffee people around the world sit up and take notice of Taiwan coffee, and gradually linking together the chain of the specialty coffee industry. And with specialty coffee changing with each passing day, every link brims with business opportunity, so it is no exaggeration to call it a glittering food-and-beverage industry.
Wang Ts'e, a judge at this year's Taiwan Coffee Top 12+1 Invitational and the winner of the 2017 World Brewers Cup this June, with his superb skill and personal charisma polished the mirror that is brewing, the domain of the guard, once again marking specialty coffee as a fashionable industry that strings together terroir, technique, flavor, performance and mechanical equipment, and can even create idols.
The Champion Brewer's Little Secrets of Choosing Water
Happy to pass on brewing training to coffee people who are keen to compete, Wang Ts'e begins with carrying his own water to competitions as he shares the secrets of his championship. “When the water quality differs, the brewed flavor differs, and so you need different parameters.” Wang Ts'e's team decided to use the simplest approach: first use good water quality, then fix all the parameters, such as the water-to-coffee ratio, grind size and water temperature control, and grind the coffee extremely fine. Once water is poured into the dripper, a steady hand does not need to make many circles; the coffee grounds will collapse on their own, and all he has to do is pour water into the dripper. “Grind size and water volume are corresponding parameters in brewing. The brewer pours water toward the center of the dripper according to the grind size. In traditional Japanese pour-over, the grind is relatively coarser, so some turbulence is needed to turn the coffee grounds.”
Every brewer's technique has water that suits it. The water Wang Ts'e uses is neutral and slightly acidic, at PH6.7 to 6.8, with a TDS of about 70ppm (the content of conductive salts and calcium in water; 0 to 89ppm is very soft water; some baristas like an extremely clean taste and use a lower TDS value). By the values baristas commonly use, the TDS of Wang Ts'e's water is on the high side, so he grinds the coffee fine to match this water quality, then uses some minerals to balance and blend these flavors. This TDS value, combined with his brewing technique and water quality, yields high sweetness and a high, full-bodied mouthfeel, presenting a syrupy texture.