Morning Coffee & Afternoon Tea

Coffee Roasting Report #4

I've been experimenting with blends.  I'm not entirely sure I'm doing it right.  Is it sacrilege to roast different kinds of coffee together? 

After trying umpteen different coffees together, I finally hit on one I really like.  I've been keeping records and rating the different coffees and blends on a basic ... very basic ...  scale, giving each a number 1-10 based purely on whether I like it or not.  I've only one batch in the negative numbers, way over-roasted and disgusting, might have been better used as kindling chips in the fireplace.  And I've had a few batches that were down in the 2-3 range.  Most have been in the middle numbers, tolerable, but nothing that really grabbed me.

This latest blend, however, is stellar.  80% Sumatria Classic Mandheling, and 20% Yemen Mokha Sana'ani produces a deeply mocha coffee, not just chocolately, but deeply darkly chocolatey.  I've tried this blend lightly roasted, medium / full city, quite dark, and something in between, and frankly, they're all good.  The mocha flavor is most apparent in the medium roast, so that would probably be my first choice.

I am still frustrated by the inconsistencies in roasting.  I assumed that once I found a good bean and darkness, I could set the roaster and walk away.  But that's just not so.  The exact same level of beans (from the same batch), roasted for the exact same amount of time does not always produce the exact same darkness of roast.  It's maddening.  I have no idea what other factors are affecting things - humidity?  It has been more humid than usual here lately.  And if the air conditioner kicks on in the middle of roasting, does that draw from the power needed for the roaster?  I'm not tech headed enough to know if that would make a difference, or what else to pay attention to.  Any advice?

King David Coffee Roasters

I'm gonna have to quit working, it's seriously cutting into my other endeavors.  Now, if I could find a way to earn a living in Uru Live, that would be quite the apogee.  Ah well.

I have some coffees to review, especially for those of you who prefer fresh roasted coffee, but don't want to do the roasting yourself.  King David Coffee Roasters, a small coffee micro roasting company located in Nashua, New Hampshire, offer freshly roasted coffee, both retail and bulk/wholesale.  You can select the darkness you prefer, and the grind, but of course, if you're going to bother to order freshly roasted coffee, you don't want it pre-ground.  Sort of defeats the purpose.  Additionally, King David's is "certified strictly kosher by KSA, Kosher Supervision of America".  I hate to admit I don't really know what that means to coffee. 

Anyway, the three I've tried and can comment on are Costa Rica Tarrazu (light roast), Panama Boquete (medium roast), and Celebes Kalossi (dark roast).

I started with the CR Tarrazu, since I have most experience with it.  It didn't disappoint, it was fresh enough to suit me, and flavorful.  I have to say though, I'm not really a fan of light roast coffee.  The flavor is still a bit too green for me.  I much prefer a medium roast, that still retains the regional flavors, but moving in taste toward the carmelized bean.  Still, this light roast Tarrazu was good.

I enjoyed the Panama Boquete, it was alright, but my favorite was the Celebes Kalossi, from the Sulawesi Island of Indonesia.  I'm not that familiar with Indonesian coffees, and this was excellent in a dark roast.  Very tasty. 

One thing I noticed is there didn't seem to be much difference in bean color between the light and medium roasts.  Maybe this has to do with the type of coffee, I don't know.  The coffee chart on Sweet Maria's website is what I've been using as a reference for my own roasting experiments, and to go by that, the King David Panama Boquete was actually closer to a light roast.  I need to get some freshly roasted beans from other companies and make some comparisons, but I would definitely recommend King David's as a source for freshly roasted beans.

My Coffee's Better Than Theirs Is ...

There was this ad jingle, back in my youth.  It went "My dog's better than your dog, my dog's better than yours, my dog's better 'cause he eats KenLRation, my dog's better than yours."

If you never saw or heard this commercial, you just have to imagine it.  If you have heard it, I'm sorry in advance, because now that song will be stuck in your head ALL day.  And maybe the rest of the week.  It's been in my head for two days now, and it WON'T go away.

It all started with coffee.  Waking up and realizing I didn't have enough freshly roasted coffee beans to last my morning.  I only had enough to jump start my engine.  Now, I could have just roasted some, but, well, right out of the roaster ... not so good.  Better if they sit overnight and breathe a bit.  So I inhaled that smidgy of coffee I was able to make, and then dashed off to the store and the coffee shop for a double shot.  Ohmigod, I'm here to tell you - c'mon sing along with me now - my coffee's better than their's is, my coffee's better than theirs, my coffee's better 'cause mine is fresh roasted, my coffee's better than theirs!!!

S'truth. 

For a long time now I haven't made a big deal about this with my friends and family, because I was afraid they'd think I was turning into one of those [grimace] coffee snobs.  You know the kind, the ones who sash-aaaay into Starbucks and rattle off their order at lightning speed, and then look down their noses at you when you can't figure out what the options are.  I really don't want to become a [grimace] coffee snob.

But s'truth.  Freshly roasted coffee is so-way-much better.  Don't take my word for it.  Read these articles: Part 1, and Part 2, written by the great Tonx, all about the selecting your beans, and the issue of freshness.  (A list of more articles can be found on this blog post.)

The bad thing about roasting your own - you can't settle for stale coffee, you're completely ruined.  So, my next endeavor is to research coffee shops in my area that do roast their own.  I'm sure there must be a few.  Because the next time I run out of freshly roasted, I won't be going to THAT particular coffee shop again, unless it's to jingle them with "My coffee's better than yours is..."  Heheh.

Coffee Roasting Report #3

Over Christmas I finally got low enough on my supply of green bean samples that I needed to re-order.  But Sweet Maria's was closed for the holidays, so I started looking around for other sources of beans. Here are my notes on a few:

G2 Coffee Merchants - This site confused me.  Apparently they don't offer sample packs, but since they're in New Zealand the point was moot.  I can't imagine what the shipping charges would be.  New Zealand folx will be happy to know they can buy green from this site, and they'll roast it for you if you don't want to roast your own.

Coffee Storehouse - This site offers half-pound sample packs, a 6-pack and a 10-pack, but the price was a higher than Sweet Maria's.  Bookmarked for possible purchase later.

Burman Coffee Traders - No small sample packs, but they do offer special bundles.  The bundles are 3 different kinds of green beans, one-pound packs.

Coffee Bean Corral - This site offers sample 1/2-pound sample packs, but you have to buy them separately, so the price varies.  Some coffees are more expensive then others. 

I went ahead and placed an order for 6 coffee sample packs from the Coffee Bean Corral.  I really liked being able to select which ones I wanted!  Ordering was easy and they shipped pretty fast. 

The only thing I like better about Sweet Maria's (other than the price) is that Sweet Maria's prints descriptions of flavors and recommendations for roasting times right on the packs.  For dummies like me, it's nice to have that information handy.  I would roast half the bag using their recommendations, and then do the other half by eye-nose, and see which I liked better.   Coffee Bean Corral has something they call "the matrix" on their website, which tries to catalog the different characteristics of each coffee, but I couldn't find roasting recommendations anywhere.  To savvy roasters it probably doesn't matter, but for newbies like me, it's helpful to have something to guage by.

Coffee Roasting Report #2

My, my how the time does fly.  In between this post and my last ... let's see, we had a touch of the flu; a strange orange crested bird started showing up at my feeders; mass quantities of food were consumed by extremely grateful people, and my brother announced that he and his are going up north for Christmas.  This last was announced carefully, as if they thought I might pitch a fit.  I did.  But I waited till they left, in my own room.  It's not the same without them here for Christmas.  *sigh*

Oh yeah, and a whole lotta coffee has been roasted.  Heh.  I think I'm finally ready to give my two cents worth on the Z&D Home Roaster. 

The first thing I noticed, which you can't really tell when you're roasting in the oven, is how much the beans expand.  I took some "action pics" here during the process to show the changes.  Click for big'uns.

It's definitely a process that needs to be tended to.  In spite of roasting time guidelines, each is different, and you can't just assume roasting time for one bean will work for another.

As promised, it self-ventilates, so I can roast without smoking up the house.  But it still smells like coffee roasting, and that's great.  No, that's WONDERFUL.  There are some smells that send me into nasal nirvana, and coffee roasting is right up there.  Baking bread, cookies fresh out of the oven, bacon in the morning, and coffee - roasting grinding and brewing.  My only complaint is that by the time roasting is done my nose has sent my mouth into overdrive-anticipation-mode.  But most stuff I've read says the flavor is best if it's had a few hours or so to expand and breathe.  Geeyod it's hard to wait. I have had to learn self-control.  Not an easy task for me.

I'm sure enjoying experimenting with the various green beans I have here though, and I think I've made the hubs a convert.  Actually, I may have created a monster.  Now he doesn't want anything but fresh roasted.  For now that's no problem.  I've got quite a supply of samples and we're going through them all one by one.  I'm doing two roasts of each kind - one dark and one medium/light.  The individual flavor of the bean is definitely more pronounced a medium roast.  I'm having a grand time tasting and making notes, deciding which ones I like best. 

The only other complaint I have is that it's not easy to clean.  We don't generally warrant running the dishwasher every day here, so if I want to roast more than once a day (am I getting obsessive???) I have to wash the thing by hand, and that's no easy task.  But the destructions - including the instructional video - all really emphasize that you MUST clean it after each use.  What a pain!  You need all kinds of special tools and implements and my local store doesn't carry those kinds of small brushes. 

I guess I can live with this small inconvenience.  I have to say this has already proven to be the best birthday present a girl like me could get.  I love love LOVE it.

Coffee Roasting Report

I have roasted!  My very first batch of home-roasted coffee beans!

I wanted the first batch to be a sort of experiment.  I wanted to know if there really WAS a difference, semi-objectively.  So I chose to start with Costa Rican Tarrazu beans, since I had some that I had bought and could use them to make a comparison with.  Well, maybe not a completely fair comparison, since the bought beans were already some hmmphmm weeks old in the house.  But at least it gave me a place to start.

I followed the destructions given here.  I used the lower temperature - 410 F -  to start with, but when the beans didn't crack at 12 minutes, I turned the oven up to 425 F and waited.  4 minutes later I was started to get nervous but there was finally a crack.  I kept waiting for the second surge of cracking, but it never came, and the first cracking actually never fully stopped.  I'm going to guess that means my beans weren't roasting uniformly.  Maybe I had too many in the pan, or not enough space in the center, I don't know.   In any case, after 18 and a half minutes they were quite dark, so I finally just took them out.  Then it was just a matter of letting them cool, and shaking them in the collander to get the little chafy stuff off. 

Then came the experiment.  I had to wait for the house to clear a bit, because all I could smell at first was the smokey roasting smell, which I LOVE, by the way.  I would fill the house with that smell all the time, if the hubs didn't object so strongly.  It wasn't as smokey as I thought it would be, but I did have a pretty hefty fan blowing through the kitchen and straight out the wide-open window.

I measured out the same amount of beans from the bag of Costa Rica Tarrazu and my freshly roasted.  The first big difference I noticed was the smell of the beans themselves.  What a difference.  HUGE!  The bought beans smelled bitter and flat.  Not stale, just bitter.  The fresh beans had a really strong smell, a full smell.  Much richer and more complex. 

I made myself two cups of coffee and carefully tasted each.  I won't even bother to say I "cupped", because I'm such a rank amateur at this it's not funny.  But I tasted.  And waited.  Then tasted the other.  Back and forth a few times, letting the coffee flavors speak to me.  There is a definite difference.

Now, those folx who have done this will think I'm being silly, but ... frankly, as the hubs was happy to tell me, there's a lot of hype about coffee and various coffee preparation - machines and beans and such - and I'm inclined to agree with him somewhat.  I did feel a little bit skeptical.  I wondered how much of that praise and rapture is just ... fashion.  I had to know, I had to test it for myself.  Even if there hadn't been a big difference, I would have enjoyed the process.  But now I can say that there is definitely a difference in the flavor of coffee made from a freshly roasted bean.  A big difference.  The bought coffee was good, but the flavor of the other was fuller, bigger.  I don't think it was something I've ever tasted, so I'm not sure what to compare it to. 

It was like the difference between a freshly picked rose and one that's sat in a vase for a few days.  If you've only ever smelled the 2 day old rose, you would think it smells nice, and you would enjoy it, but you wouldn't know what you were missing.  You wouldn't have been blessed by the subtle complexities from the aroma of a fresh rose.

That's what this experience was like.  My nose and taste buds went  "ahhhhh, I never knew ... "

The kicker -- the hubs likes it.  Before I did this, he said stuff like "You know, you can just BUY those beans at the store and not have to go through all this trouble".   But after I served him up his very own cup, he raved.  In fact, he went back for another cup this evening.  And he said something to the effect of "I wouldn't go through all this trouble myself, but any time you want to roast some more beans, I'll be happy to help you use them up."

That's high praise from the real skeptic in this house.

Now the question is, shall I keep doing it in the oven, or shall I invest in the roasting machine thingy?

Roast Your Own Coffee Beans

I've decided I want to try roasting my own coffee here at home.  I want to be able to use terms like "first crack".  More importantly, I want to taste really truly fresh-roasted beans, and have the satisfaction of knowing I did it.

I've been reading on the net, and I found a couple of posts where regular folx like me have tried this (as opposed to the uber-knowledgeable barista-types with big budgets).   It sounds like something I could at least try at home on the cheap.  Then, if I like it, maybe I'll invest in some gadgetry. 

There's the oven method here and the skillet method here, and this one uses a special popcorn popper.  And here's something from Engadget on converting your popcorn popper into a coffee roaster.  I don't know if I'm up for all that.  I think I'll go with the oven method.  And I better do it soon while it's still cool enough here to open the windows, which all the destructions I've read say is extremely important.   I gather a lot of smoke is generated. 

The smoke issue led me to this gadget .... 

The Smoke-Free Home Roaster Kit from Zach & Dani's.  Smoke-free, it says.  That would be cool.  The kit comes with the roaster, 3 bags of beans, an instructional video, and optional grinder. 

For $150, it sounds like a pretty good deal, especially if it really IS smoke-free.  Then I'd be able to use it here even in the summer months. 

But I can't find any testimonials or posts about this roaster.  Has anybody used it?  Any words of wisdom?  Tips in general on roasting your own?