Communiversity Adds Long-Awaited Coffee Grinding Course to Catalog

Local entrepreneur Chuck Pfahler, the founder of and former owner of La Terza Coffee, is also the man behind the new Adesso Coffee mobile pop-up espresso shop and instructor of one of the Communiversity program’s most popular courses,

Coffee 101: A Cup of Excellence

. All of these endeavors are driven by Pfahler’s passion for creating great coffee and sharing it with others.

Pfahler’s love for the art was born out of his secret consumption of not-so-great coffee. At age 5, Pfahler used to sneak into his mom’s cabinet to make himself Taster’s Choice instant coffee.  As he grew up, he moved on to higher-quality and better-tasting coffees until he learned to roast coffee himself on a hot-air popcorn maker.  “I installed a turkey fryer thermometer and began managing time and temperature relationships and created spreadsheets to log my progress. I landed on a roasting process that drew out the flavors in coffee that I was searching for,” Pfahler said. “But more than creating great coffee, I loved sharing coffee and seeing people connect with it. I found an artistic expression in coffee and drew a lot of fulfillment in it.”

Connecting people with great coffee is what led Pfahler to start La Terza. “My desire through La Terza was to start a coffee roasterie that serves independent mom-and-pop coffee shops, general stores, restaurants and local farmer's markets,” Pfahler said. He owned La Terza for 12 years before selling the business. Pfahler also began teaching

Coffee 101: A Cup of Excellence

for Communiversity in the summer of 2017.

Coffee 101 introduces students to the exciting world of craft coffee, including where coffee grows, how it’s processed, the journey from crop to cup, and how it all of affects taste. Students can take part in the art and science of manual brewing and how different brew devices create different aroma and flavor characteristics. The guided hands-on brewing and tasting exercises show students how to make the perfect cup of coffee every time. The next session of

Coffee 101: A Cup of Excellence

takes place on Feb. 20 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on UC’s Victory Parkway Campus.

Recently, Pfahler started a coffee cart

Adesso

, which offers mobile coffee service for events.

“Through Adesso I want to bring great coffee to people in strictly a retail setting. I see coffee as a culinary expression and approach my coffee menu in this way,” Pfahler said. “I craft syrups using fresh, natural, local ingredients and keep to a seasonal approach to celebrate the diversity of produce in our region.”

After teaching an introductory coffee course, Pfahler said he has wanted to teach an advanced course for quite a while. That is why he is so excited to offer

The Art of Grinding Coffee

this winter. During the course, Pfahler settles the confusion about which coffee grind settings to use, whether a blade grinder or a burr grinder is necessary, the difference between a conical burr and a flat burr, and more.

The Art of Grinding Coffee

dives into understanding the differences between grinders and brewing one coffee with one recipe across a variety of different coffee grinders to demonstrate those differences and how to best select the correct grind setting for your specific brewing method.

“Grinding is one of those topics that I've wanted to expand on for quite some time. It’s an area in the brewing equation that is often overlooked but has huge impacts on the final result,” Pfahler said. “Everything from the type of grinder to the variances of grind setting and evenness of grind distribution will be explored.” Taking the

Coffee 101

before this course is recommended but not required.

The Art of Grinding Coffee

takes place on Feb. 27 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Victory Parkway Campus.

Phfaler also teams up with Chef Lindsey Cook for a new culinary class,

Cooking with Coffee

. In this class, Chef Lindsey will guide students through a menu that infuses coffee into each dish. An appetizer, main dish and dessert will be crafted through this hands-on cooking and coffee experience. Chuck will be pairing each dish with the perfect cup of coffee including unique espresso infused cocktails. Plus, students will get to make your own savory coffee rub to take home.

Communiversity offers fun and innovative continuing education courses to enrich the lives of those around Cincinnati and beyond. With locations both on UC Victory Parkway Campus and around Cincinnati, Communiversity makes it easy for working professionals, retirees and other lifelong learners to develop new skills and hobbies.

You can register

online

for these or any Communiversity course or call us at 556-6932. UC staff and faculty may enroll in one course per term at 50 percent off the registration fee. Some restrictions apply, see our

FAQs

page for more details.