Gibraltar Cup Story of Blue bottle Coffee: how to make Gibraltar Coffee (Gibraltar) at Home?

If you have been to the store of the well-known chain Blue bottle Coffee, you are likely to see a drink called Gibraltar, which is not only unfamiliar but also easy to mispronounce compared to other familiar names. So what kind of coffee is it? Qianjie will come with you today to find out the answer.

What is Gibraltar?

The current street uses the word to ask "du Niang" directly and gets such an explanation: Gibraltar (English: Gibraltar), it turns out that it comes from the city and port name at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula in Europe, and also refers to the "Strait of Gibraltar" that appears on the map.

In addition, it actually has another identity, which specifically refers to a series of glasses produced by Libbey in the United States. Founded in 1818, Libby, known as the number one glassware manufacturer in North America, has more unique technology and innovation in the industry, including the Gibraltar Cup (Gibraltar glass), which was launched in 1977. The water cups used in many cafes on the market are the Liberian Gibraltar series.

But in our "dry curry" eyes, these are obviously not the answers we want, how can the glass become coffee? Don't worry, let's get down to business.

Coffee born because of buying the wrong cup

Blue bottle coffee (Blue Bottle Coffee), known as the "apple" of coffee, was born in Oakland in the San Francisco Bay area. Founder James Freeman (James Freeman) founded the brand out of his love for coffee. According to him, the name was given to pay homage to the first coffee shop (The Blue Bottle) born in Europe in 1683.

In 2005, James was preparing the first physical blue bottle coffee store. One day, an employee accidentally bought a pile of Gibraltar glasses and mistakenly thought they could be used as a cup test. But because these cups are so small that they only have a capacity of 4.5 ounces and are not enough to produce regular espresso, they are left idle in cardboard boxes.

Until the store bought a new espresso machine and needed to adjust the concentration and matching with steamed milk, the staff found that the transparency and size of the glasses were just enough to observe the state of the oil, so they took them out again. I hope it will come in handy.

Picture from: bluebottle

In order to launch a drink that is close to the average espresso and not as exciting as drinking concentrate, blue bottle baristas begin to add a small amount of warm milk with thin foam to a small glass filled with espresso, with an overall ratio between latte and macchiato. At this moment, a passing guest pointed to it and asked, "what is this thing?" Then the barista tactfully replied, "Oh!" this is our Gibraltar. "

Inadvertently, they also inadvertently created a drink that did not appear on the menu, and became popular after its launch. As the blue bottle of coffee has spread to many countries, this rich small milk coffee, which is specially filled with beautiful glasses, has become more and more popular. Therefore, whenever people mention Gibraltar Coffee, they will immediately think of its inventor, the Blue bottle.

The practice of Gibraltar coffee

According to the "recipe" shared by Blue bottle Coffee, Gibraltar's production is not complicated, using a rock cup with an octagonal cross section at the bottom of about 4.5 ounces (a flat-bottomed glass shaped in the shape of a cylinder). Blend about twice as much warm milk into a double espresso and finally push a small flower.

For example, 19.8g warm Sun blend Coffee Powder extracted 36ml concentrated liquid, whipped out a jar of thin soaked milk at a temperature of 50-55 ℃, and then melted it into a small glass prepared in advance until it was full. The Gibraltar cup contains about 130ml, so the ratio of coffee to milk is about 1:2.

Qianjie tasted a very obvious sense of body fat from this cup of Gibraltar coffee. Compared with Australia and White, its coffee flavor is thick and solid, a bit like espresso diluted by milk, but it does not directly drink concentrated coffee or macchiato as stimulating and heavy taste, but it is associated with another coffee-Cortado, which is also a mouthful.

What's the difference between Gibraltar and Cotado, which are all "three stuffy" milk cafes?

I don't know if you remember Cotadot, who was once popular in front of the street, a cup of Spanish coffee that was on the list of unpopular coffee circles. Mini cup, double concentrate, less milk, thin milk bubbles, Gibraltar and Cotadot look almost exactly alike, isn't it the same thing?

If you look at the recipe alone, they are indeed the same coffee, or rather, Gibraltar should be the "improved version" of Cotadot. It's just that some "persistent" baristas are eager to distinguish between them, so they just find the difference between "cups" to make people remember the two coffees more quickly.

In fact, James, founder of Blue bottle, told us the answer in his book The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee, which tells the story of Blue bottle:

It was a Cotadot, but we didn't know it at the time.

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