I am an editorial writer at The Korea Times, focusing on foreign policy, North Korea and domestic politics. My key areas of interest include North Korea, foreign interference in elections, election integrity, cyberattacks and human rights. Prior to joining the Editorial Board, I served as both Politics Desk editor and Culture Desk editor. During my career, I have reported on the Presidential Office under the Lee Myung-bak administration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Assembly.
Tips for enjoying fresh coffee
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Sherri Johns
By Kang Hyun-kyung
By Kang Hyun-kyung
ARAXA, Brazil – Always, check if coffee you are buying is fresh enough and once you buy it, don’t put it in the refrigerator.
These are some pieces of advice that Sherri Johns offered to help Koreans enjoy fresh, quality coffee. She has 38 years of extensive experience in the coffee industry as a roaster, cupper, as well as contributing writer to food and coffee publications.
“If you are going to brew coffee at home, I recommend that you buy fresh coffee beans roasted within two weeks,” she told The Korea Times on Jan. 25. “Coffee is perishable. It is not fresh forever.”
Johns, a marketing director of the Oregon-based non-profit Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE), which owns and manages the specialty coffee contest “Cup of Excellence”, noted that preservation of coffee also affects the flavor and taste.
She said putting it in the refrigerator is a bad idea. “There is so much humidity in the air and coffee absorbs it. Once coffee has some moisture in it, it freezes, crystallizes and creates cracks which allow oxygen in.”
Johns, who has been to Korea nearly 15 times over the past nine years to train baristas, said she was excited to witness Koreans discover the flavor and taste of espresso-based coffees, resulting in a sharp rise in coffee consumption in recent years.
She said Korea is one of the hottest emerging markets for coffee producers, along with China, India, Russia and Japan. Korea is Asia’s fastest-growing coffee market. There are nearly 20,000 espresso coffee shops in Seoul.
Johns was raised with coffee, and it has been an essential part of her family since she was very young. The smell of coffee used to fill the air at her house all the time because her mother brewed it at home.
Professionally, Johns started to explore the coffee industry when she was a social welfare major at a university in San Francisco. “We had a study group there and I would always bring three or four different types of coffee, such as from Kenya and Sumatra,” she said. “I would give it to my friends and we would talk about coffee.”
Her deep interest in coffee led her to work part-time at an espresso bar near her university, which was the first of its kind in North America back then.
Her job there was tasting and making coffee. Johns said initially she felt pressure because of her inexperience, so she went to the espresso bar early each day to learn how to make coffee in different ways.
Soon her customers came to realize the difference.
“The customers kept asking the manager if I changed a roaster and were curious because the coffee tasted differently,” she said.
One day, the manager called Johns into the backroom. “I thought I was going to be fired,” Johns recalled.
The manager actually proposed that Johns work with the espresso bar full-time educating and training the rest of staff so that they could roast and make coffee as good as she did. She accepted the offer.
Years later, she worked with Starbucks for five years before joining the ACE in 2012.