Scotto's Coffee & Tea

New Supplier, New Coffees, and More Data

2010-08-27T14:58:00.004-04:00

Over the past few months I have changed my coffee buying habits in a lot of ways. For a while I had been buying things in bulk (5 pounds or more). The end result is that I ended up with a LOT of coffee. It is more cost efficient to deal with some of the green coffee buying clubs compared to retailers, but I had been finding the coffee more hit or miss than I would like. In the end, I decided what I really like is VARIETY and really high quality coffee. I would rather have 10 one-pound lots of really individual and fantastic coffee than 10 pounds of a mediocre coffee, even if it costs me significantly more. Net net: I switched to buying most of my coffee from Sweet Marias, much as I had done when I started out in this hobby years ago.

Anyway, fast forward to a few weeks ago, and I came across a posting from the Green Coffee Buying Club about a discount that was being offered from Roastmasters.com. Happy alarm bells started ringing in my head for a reason that took me a day or two to work out. Turns out that Roastmasters is the green coffee/home roasting endeavor of one of my favorite coffee shops - Willoughbys.

You see, my infatuation with great coffee started at Willoughbys in New Haven, Connecticut during my years as a grad student. I had drunk coffee all my life, but finding Willoughbys was like finding an oasis in the desert. They roasted all their own coffee, had tremendous variety, and the brewed coffee they offered was like being in a different galaxy compared to what I had been drinking. In short, I was hooked, and stopping by the cafe became part of my daily ritual. Some of my nicest memories are of me and my wife hanging out outside the cafe, drinking coffee together, enjoying the sunshine, and having a bagel at breakfast time. Even after I graduated and moved to New York, mail-ordered coffee from Willoughbys was my modus operandi.

Realizing this, it wasn't hard to convince myself to buy some green coffee from them. What is really nice, though I haven't done it myself, is that you can buy the same exact coffee from them roasted, as well as the green beans, to try your roasting chops against them. This is a really nice option for those who are learning to roast.

So far I have tried a few coffees from their selection, and they have been really good. They are a bit on the pricey side, but the shipping from Connecticut is a whole lot faster then buying from Sweet Marias. I will definitely be a repeat customer.

The first coffee I tried was an Ethiopia dry processed coffee, Amaro Gayo. These beans have made the rounds lately, gaining a name for themselves as a really nice cup. I have to agree- a City roast I did was packed full of berry aromas and tastes, with a solid cocoa background. I'm glad I bought a couple of pounds. The next coffee I roasted was a lovely, light Guatemala Antigua by the name of "Finca Columbia". As usual, I was playing around with roast profiles, and I managed to come up with a temperature progression I really liked. Here is the derivative curve, as I discussed in my last post. I should also fess up that I did a rolling average to clean up some of the noise in the data.

The roast profile for this coffee was 80% power to start, dropping to 70% at 360 degrees. I have been looking at these derivative curves for a while, and something jumped out at me suddenly. There is a common trait in this temperature data - the rate of temperature change drops consistently at first crack. Thinking a little more, this makes perfect sense; at first crack the water in the beans is powerfully boiling off (hence the cracking sounds). The heat being applied to the beans at this point is going into this reaction, instead of driving the temperature of the beans up. Similarly, at about 400 degrees or so (about 13.5 minutes in this graph) you see an uptick again. This is the point at which you have a City roast - first crack is ending, and the beans start to expand more before eventually reaching second crack. I have overlaid a lot of roast data, and these characteristics are very consistent. It points toward some interesting ideas in terms of roast control, and I see that other folks have also picked up on this in cyberspace, designing controllers and real-time data collection devices to track this rate of temperature rise.

Here is another example I added to the same chart:

This is a Kenya I roasted, and you can see how these derivative charts are useful. I started using the same exact profile as the Guatemala in the previous example, and noticed that it was taking heat slower than I expected. In retrospect, it isn't surprising since Kenyas are such high-grown, dense seeds. I won't bore you with any specific heat calculations, so never fear....

Anyway, you can see where I increased the heat flow and the subsequent rise of the curve, and again the drop when first crack arrived. These diagnostics are very interesting indeed, and I have some other ideas to make them better. By the way, that Kenya Muranga'a was super-intense, sweet, and fruity. Great stuff.

Engineers Gone Wild

2010-03-09T12:29:00.005-05:00

One of the things that has been troubling me for a while is better understanding the differences between roast profiles. A change in how a coffee has been roasted, even when the final temperature is the same, can be dramatic. However, looking at the temperature data doesn't always tell the story. Here is a good example:

This is two Kenya beans that were roasted differently. The differences in the curves are quite subtle even though what I was changing in terms of temperatures, times, and fan speeds were very different. Even roasts that were absolutely terrible, like the experiments I did on high drop temperatures, show barely a difference in the roast curves. Some of this is due to the fact that the scales are large since you cover a sizable temperature range in the roast, but some of it is just subtlety in the temperature profile producing large effects in the taste of the coffee.

I was playing around in Excel the other day trying to determine if I was just fooling myself that I have any control over the roasting process. I decided that I needed to look at the data another way, so I decided to take the derivative of the temperature data and see if anything illuminating happened.

Without getting into the mathematical details, the 1st derivative is essentially the rate of change of temperature as a function of time. Taking the same two coffees, plus a third example, you can see the data this way:

The x-axis is still time, but now the y-axis is the change in temperature per unit of time. You can see when the coffee is dropped in at time=zero, there is a huge temperature drop (this is why it is a negative number), and eventually it recovers to something between 10 and 50 degrees of temperature increase per minute until the end of the roast.

One interesting fact immediately popped out after looking at a few charts like this. On the experiments I did with a higher drop temperature, the rate of temperature decrease when the beans are added is substantially higher than when the coffee is dropped at a lower temperature. I am not sure why this is (or if it matters), but I could imagine that that heating element is still on and going strong for the lower drop temperature, and in the other case the environmental temperature and thermal mass have stabilized such that the heater is not on as much. Anyhoo....

The more interesting data is when you zoom in around the region from first crack to the end of the roast:

Don't worry too much about the noisiness in the data; that is typical of this sort of data analysis and the sample size I have used. A couple of things are interesting here. First, I strive to keep a roughly 10 degree per minute temperature rise from first crack to end of roast. You can see that these roasts are doing pretty well. Looking at the earlier times, you can see my attempts to ramp down the heat as first crack approaches in order to have a nice slow, steady progression through that phase of the roast.

The dots on the graph indicate where first crack began on each roast. You can see that the roast of the Kenya Tambaya had a slower ramp rate at first crack than the other two. This is exactly what was intended. I am trying to develop a roast profile that very gently enters first crack. By looking at these curves, it is evident that it is working. The other two Kenya roasts were roasted with the same profile, hotter going into first crack, and the data shows this clearly.

I'll be looking at these derivative curves more as time goes on. It really hones in on important parts of the roast. Amusingly, I came across some other posts on the web where people are actually building micro-controllers for their roasters that track this same 1st derivative data as a hands-on tool for roaster control. Mediocre minds think alike and all that.

Mathematics aside, you are probably wondering how the coffee tastes with the slow entry into first crack. The initial data is extremely promising - very sweet coffees with well integrated acidity and no grassiness. Stay tuned for more coffee reviews.

Drop Temperature and Ethiopia Birbissa again

2010-03-02T12:18:00.004-05:00

If you have paid any attention to the roast profiles I have been posting with the Hottop, you'll see that the coffee is typically getting to about 300 degrees in 5-6 minutes. This drying phase is important, as I have talked about before, and really sets the stage for what the coffee is going to taste like.

There are some hints out there that drying the coffee a bit faster can have positive qualities in the cup (more sweetness/acidity, less woodiness), so I started thinking about how to do this.

Unfortunately, all electrically powered roasters are very underpowered. You really need a gas-fired tool to have a significant effect on the ramp speed. Since a gas powered roaster isn't in the cards for me any time soon, I decided to play around with the temperature at which the coffee is added to the roaster. Letting the roaster pre-heat more, I surmised, would speed things up. It did indeed, but with less than stellar results, I am afraid.

Here is a graph of Ethiopia Birbissa with the two roasts:

You'll see that the roast that had the coffee added at 400 degrees did recover faster, and the earlier part of the roast was overall somewhat shorter. The total roast time and final temperature were the same. Comparing my notes from the original roast to this new one was like reading about two different coffees. While the first one was a fruit bomb, the higher drop temperature roast was woody, flatter, and much less interesting. I am not sure if there was a bit of scorching going on or something else, but it wasn't a positive improvement. I did a second test with some Red Sea Blend at the higher drop temperature and had a similar result. Rather than increasing sweetness and/or acidity, these coffees were flat, uninteresting, and overly woody.

It looks like it is back to the drawing board a bit. I have had some really excellent coffees lately with a more traditional roast profile which I hope to post about soon. Also, I may play around with smaller roast loads to see if the ramp speeds can be modified in that way instead of with the drop temperature.

Columbia "Dos Payasos de Tolima"

2010-02-01T15:03:00.005-05:00

Well, the few readers of this blog won't be surprised that life intruded once again on poor Scotto, making blogging very infrequent. Rest assured that roasting and drinking coffee has not gone by the wayside; in fact, it has gotten even more interesting. More on that later.

I have been in stash-reduction mode for green coffee for quite a long time. Recently, I finally got around to ordering some more coffee from Sweet Maria's after a long hiatus. Boy, did I forget how stellar the beans are. I buy a fair amount of beans from places like the Green Coffee Buying Club and such, largely because it is inexpensive. It is possible to get good, and occasionally, very good coffees from there, but the coffee from Sweet Marias is uniformly suberb. It is a bit more expensive, but you are essentially paying Tom to be your personal taster and quality-control guy.

This Columbia is a revelation for a fatigued palate. I roasted it inside (Yay! No more freezing garage with the Hottop - more on that another time) and produced a roast curve as follows:

You can see the power levels (the fan was set at 25% for the entire roast) and the boxed area where 1st crack was.

Roasting inside is taking some adjusting in profiles, as the behavior is different from the cold garage. Things were a bit quick at the end, but the coffee was still excellent. It is sweet, sweet grapes all the way in this one. There is a perfect, sparkling acidity, raisins, and an unctuous quality to the coffee that lingers forever. If you like Kenyas and such, you should definitely check this one out. It is an intense coffee, and one of the best Columbias I have had in a while, perhaps since the Cerulean Warbler.

Dinner at WD-50

2009-11-11T10:59:00.006-05:00

I’ve been to every 4 star restaurant in New York City, and dozens of other restaurants in the area over the years. I am fortunate enough to be able to afford such pleasures now and again (that's the humble way of saying I worked my ass off to get where I am), and as a foodie and a serious home cook, this is one of the things that I really like to do. WD-50 has always been on my mind to go to, but in the back of my head it was relegated to second-tier status. I finally remedied the situation over the weekend, and now I am kicking myself that it took so long. In a nutshell, the food is thought-provoking, and more importantly, delicious.

WD-50 and its chef, Wylie Dufresne, have gotten lots of press over the years, chiefly because of chef Dufresne’s use of what is called molecular gastronomy. Personally, I think that is a stupid term, but what it describes is the use of science to present food in a different way. Chef Dufresne has been featured on Top Chef as a judge and contestant, and has a way about him that is certainly intriguing. But what about the food?

You see, gimmickry gets you nowhere unless the food tastes great. Any idiot can throw unusual random flavor combinations together, or use liquid nitrogen or gelling agents to create odd textures. At its heart, this is what I feared about WD-50 and what kept me away so long. I don’t want to go to a restaurant and be shocked. I want to eat great food, period.

My wife and I showed up on Saturday evening for our reservation. The staff were attentive and engaging, and we were never left hanging. So far so good. We quickly decided on the tasting menu, and then waffled on whether to get the wine pairing as well. In the end, since the restaurant is offering the awesome deal of 50% each bottle of wine when you order the tasting menu, we quickly decided to go it on our own. We had a bottle of Pichler Riesling to start, which turned out to be a fantastic combination with the first half of the menu.

Note: There are pictures of many of these dishes at the WD-50 website. They are worth a look!

The amuse, “bay scallops, white chocolate, mustard, beer” was the weakest dish of the night, but was still interesting. Since the various items on the plate were so small, I had a hard time to figure out what each individual thing was (besides the scallops). There were curlicues of some sort of crispy thing (mustard flavor, I think), bits of a “cake” (beer flavor?) , a couple of tiny scallops, and a white puree (chocolate?) on the bottom. Taken all together, there was an interesting combination of the scallop with a taste of what evoked for me horseradish cheese spread, of all things.

Next was “everything bagel, smoked salmon threads, crispy cream cheese”. As a Jew who has eaten bagels and lox his entire life, this one really tickled me. It is also a great play on the restaurant’s location, the lower east side of Manhattan, which was once one of the biggest enclaves of Jewish immigrants in the US. What threw me for a loop, though, was the fact that this perfect little “bagel” was.... ice cream! The smoked salmon threads were a flossy/cotton candy texture, but with intensely smoky salmon taste. There was also crispy cream cheese (no idea how they did that), and some really nice pickled onions as well. Again, this was a taste from my childhood transformed into something very unique texturally.

Things were getting interesting after the bagel, and next came “foie gras, passionfruit, Chinese celery”. I am a foie gras nut, especially when cold, so I was pretty excited about this one. The cylinder of foie, when cut, released a lava flow of intense, sweet/acidic passionfruit puree. It was sitting on top of crystallized celery which has sort of a granita-like texture to it, with a slightly sweet taste. The richness of the liver with the sweetness of the passionfruit was absolutely delicious. What was even better was the pairing with the Riesling we were drinking, which itself had intense passionfruit notes. They both played off each other, creating what I would say was one of the top ten combinations I have had in my restaurant dining career. This was an utterly fantastic dish.

Next up: “Scrambled egg ravioli, charred avocado, kindai kampachi”. This was essentially two dishes in parallel, each excellent in their own way, one very homey and traditional, and the other more stripped down and modern. The egg ravioli was a cube of scrambled egg, fluffy and tender, and there was a “gravel” of potatoes. Taken together, you could have been eating classic US diner food – eggs and homefries. At the same time, there was a strip of perfectly fresh, raw tuna and a cylinder of avocado puree that had been charred with a torch. This was a very nice combination as well. I liked the play on classic and modern with this dish, and the way they played off each other.

The egg dish was followed by “Cold fried chicken, buttermilk-ricotta, tabasco, caviar”. This was a cylinder (Chef Dufresne seems to be a big fan of this geometric shape) of cold fried chicken, cooked to perfection, accompanied by fresh ricotta made from buttermilk, thickened Tabasco sauce, and caviar. There were many groans of pleasure during this one. The chicken (not white meat, but not sure exactly what cut it was - perhaps a terrine?) was flavorful and crisp, the soft, tangy ricotta and spicy/vinegary Tabasco cut through it, and there was a subtle brininess from the caviar. Again, a very homey dish spun in a different way. I think the use of Tabasco with caviar is very clever, and something I wouldn’t have thought made sense before I tasted it. The unctuous quality of the fish eggs is often paired with creamy, tangy sour cream, but I think that detracts from their delicacy. Is there a play on the classic blini/sour cream/caviar dish going on here, with the sour cream being replaced by the ricotta? Or perhaps a "Chicken McNugget" provocation? Who knows, but it was very good.

“Perch, kohlrabi, 'dirty' grape, cocoa nib” followed the egg, and I was slightly apprehensive. I really don’t like kohlrabi much; it has a very earthy and musky quality that I find off-putting. This dish was a piece of sauteed perch on top of a verjus (an acidic juice from unripe grapes) gelee, with halved red grapes and small baton of raw kohlrabi on top. There were small shards of cocoa nibs scattered about, which I presume is why the grapes were “dirty”. Fish and cocoa sounds like an odd combination, and perhaps it is, but overall this was a very successful dish for me. The tender fish, sweet acidity of the verjus, and the grapes are a natural partner. However, the musky/bitter quality of the cocoa nibs and kohlrabi kept the dish from being too 1-dimensional. Without the nibs, I think the dish would have been unbalanced. I found that the cocoa created a lingering quality in the mouth as well as an interesting textural counterpoint.

Next was the mysterious “beef and béarnaise”. I had no idea whatsoever this dish was going to be, and it surprised me when a soup bowl was placed in front of me. There were several “béarnaise gnocchi” floating in an intensely-flavored roasted beef consommé. The texture of the gnocchi was yielding and soft - I believe it was "encapsulated sauce", and the broth was unbelievably powerful. When combined in the mouth, it was like eating the very essence of this dish, but in a new way. This dish brought back some intense taste memories for me, since eating Chateaubriand and béarnaise sauce at a local restaurant with my parents growing up is something that has stayed with me. This dish just blew me away.

“Lamb loin, black garlic romesco, soybean, pickled garlic chive” was another dish that got a stunned “wow” from me after the first bite. The Colorado lamb was cooked to perfection, and the garlic Romesco sauce was intensely flavored. However, the thing that took it over the edge for me was the edamame, which were dried into a very crunchy pebble form. That intense vegetal bite balanced out the richness of the lamb and created an unusual and delicious combination

“Caramel apple” was an apple sorbet filled with a center of liquid caramel. A refreshing palate cleanser after the meat dishes

“Hazelnut tart, coconut, chocolate, chicory” had a soft consistency, with the bitterness of the chicory complementing the chocolate.

Looking at my copy of the menu, “Carmelized brioche, apricot, buttercream, lemon thyme” came next. Oddly, I have no memory of it whatsoever. Perhaps too much wine?

Lastly, there were "Cocoa packets, Chocolate shortbread, milk ice cream". Little balls of chocolate that turned out to have ice cream insie, and odd rectangular chocolate packet with some sort of crunchy chocolate in side (the shortbread?).

If there was one annoyance, albeit completely expected, it was the coffee. Why oh why do fine restaurants spend so much time and effort on the food only to serve barely passable coffee? I had the same experience at Per Se where an absolutely transcendent meal was followed by an average Cuppa Joe. A couple of people, including my wife, have suggested that these restaurants have a "coffee Sommelier" or some such, and it makes sense for me. New job for Scotto anyone? After all Thomas Keller serves three different salts and multiple butters with some dishes; are you telling me he can't offer a few different coffee origins to complement dessert? Time to get with the program, guys!

Throughout the meal, I was facing the kitchen watching Chef de Cuisine Jon Bignelli work the pass. I was disappointed that Chef Dufresne was not there, but lo and behold he appeared at the bar later in our meal. Our server took us into the kitchen to look around after, which was neat. I could not believe how calm it was given the intricacy of each plate that had to be put together.

Lastly, I couldn't resist interrupting Wylie at the bar as we left to thank him for a wonderful meal. He was very nice to us, and took the time to chat for a moment. I am regretting not getting a picture with him, but that would have been a bit geeky. I know how hard these guys work, and I felt a little guilty about bothering him when he was trying to relax a bit.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I needed to write it down so the memory would linger longer. It was a fantastic evening.

Ethiopia Dry-Process Birbissa

2009-10-22T16:25:00.004-04:00

As I think I have mentioned, there is very little information on "optimum roast profiles" out there. Searching the internet will find tidbits, but it is still a DYI affair for the most part. If I had to sum up the conventional wisdom such as it is, it would be this:

Keep roast times below 14 minutes or so
Slow start/fast finish is better than the reverse
There are three main segments of the roast:

The drying segment, from start to about 300 degrees, should be about 3-5 minutes (longer for light roasts and shorter for dark roasts)
The segment from 300 degrees to the start of first crack should be as rapid as possible to avoid woody flavors
From the onset of first crack to end of roast should be 3-5 minutes. Shorter for drip and longer for espresso

Got all that?

Let's have a look at this roast of Ethiopia Birbissa:

Under 14 minutes? Check.
5 minutes to dry? Check.
Fast ramp to first? Maybe.

Pretty good against the "standard" if I do say so myself. Too bad I totally spaced out during the roast and forgot to lower the heat when I originally wanted to, but in the end it seems to have worked out. I wished I had pulled it a bit sooner since the roast got a bit darker than I had intended, but so be it.

The aroma in the cup was amazing. Pure, pure blueberies all the way. This is really the first coffee I have had that has been so distinct in one berry note, though I jave had many others with grape, strawberry, etc. Very nice. The taste follows suit, but the acidity was lower than I wanted, either due to the coffee or the roast - I am not sure. The body was syrupy and overall this was a nice dry-process cup, but nothing that exciting, IMO.

Colombia Finca Buenavista -Carlos Imbachi Microlot

2009-10-13T12:37:00.004-04:00

Boy, did I forget how hard stainless steel is to machine with home tools. Over the weekend I set out to install a thermometer probe into my Hottop, following the basic method outlined here. Sounds easy, right? Well, let's just say that much cursing ensued as I tried to drill through things with my electric drill. Anyway, its in there, giving me access to the actual bean mass temperature instead of just the Hottop's sensor which is bolted to the back wall. And a good thing, too! See:

This was a roast of a Columbian bean that I had ruined (and never blogged about, of course) with my Gene Cafe when it was having troubles. The blue line is from the Hottop readout and the pink from my new thermoprobe. Obviously, one should pay attention to the pink line, which is a fast acting K-type thermocouple buried in the rotating beans. You'll notice the temperature drop when you add the beans which is not sensed by the stock thermocouple, and the eventual crossover of the curves.

I highlighed the times where I played with the heater power to slow things down, and I also boxed out the area where first crack started and ended from about 10:45 to 13:30. What I was attempting to do was slow down the rate of heat transfer going into first crack in order to improve flavor development and have enough time after the end of first and before the onset of second crack. You can see that I stalled things out a bit where the pink curve flattens around 11 minutes in, and eventually it ramps up again later until I dropped the beans into the cooling tray. I need to play with the heat and fan settings more to have a slow but steady temperature increase instead of this stalling behavior. This roaster is like driving a Ferrari compared with the very slow reacting Gene Cafe. Still, you clearly need to anticipate things by a minute or so given the electric heating on the Hottop. Lots of room for improvement, that's for sure.

Anyway, the coffee was a nice City+ roast and was actually a decent cup. There were very intense fruity notes both in the aroma and taste. I called it tamarind in my notes, but I see that Tom from Sweetmarias called it guava. Your choice. The acidity was nicely controlled, and the cup was quite refreshing. As it cooled, there was a bit of a flavor change that is hard to describe, but I attribute it to stalling out the roast a bit and having things drag on too long. Let's call it "flat". Most people wouldn't pick up on it, but after roasting a lot of coffee I am starting to be able to tell what went wrong.

My next few efforts will be to speed things up a tad, and keep playing with the heat settings.

A New Toy and a New Learning Curve

2009-10-05T11:07:00.005-04:00

Well, I ended up going down quite a rathole with my Gene Cafe. I replaced the heater, but things still weren't as they were. As far as I can tell it works ok, but something is just different than before. After roasting a pound or two a week for years, I knew what the coffee from that roaster was going to taste like and what the behavior during the roast would be. For whatever reason, something changed and I was staring down a new learning curve. The coffee just wasn't good enough.

Then the little devious part of my mind started working. "Hey Scotto, if you are going to have to learn something all over again, why not upgrade and do it on a new machine? Expensive? Sure it is. You're worth it, though...." Before I knew it, a Hottop roaster was on its way to me.

I had quite the internal debate over roasters. Everyone is hot on the Behmor roaster (pun intended), and it is certainly a lot cheaper than a Hottop. The deal breaker for me was the fact that you can't control the roast profile. Being a scientific type, I like to be able to control things and tune profiles for different coffees. That, combined with the excellent track record of build quality of the Hottop, as well as external cooling of the beans, won me over.

A few roasts in, and this is definitely a different beast for me. There is fine tuning over the heater power (not just on/off like the Gene) and a variable fan as well. The stock thermocouple is bolted to the rear wall and is slow to react, so that will have to be addressed as well. My first couple of roasts blasted through first crack into second. After that, I learned to anticipate first crack and turn down the heater to gently ease the beans into it. By the way, I can't believe how quiet this thing is and how trivial it is to hear the cracks. There is no mistaking them whatsoever, and the challenge in other roasters of hearing over air blasting or inside a closed drum is gone. What a pleasure!

Here is a look at a recent profile:

You can see that I reduced the heater power at about 7:30 in, and the slow reaction of the measured temperature. Remember that this temperature (the pink line) is the essentially the temperature of the back wall of the roaster, not the bean temperature. I boxed out where 1st crack stopped and ended as well.

Unfortunately each bean is different, and changing power and fan on the fly is difficult, so I ordered a thermocouple probe to be able to get at the temperature of the bean mass itself. Stay tuned for that. I'll also mention how nice it is to dump the beans when you want, so there is no worries about "coasting" after you reach your desired roast level. The external cooling works great.

Most importantly, the coffee has been very good. Roasts in the Hottop are extremely sweet and full bodied, especially good for espresso. I suspect as I get better and driving this thing I will exceed my previous coffee skill by a wide margin.

Down But Not Out

2009-08-18T12:30:00.002-04:00

Hi folks. Sorry about the lack of updates here (though I have been adding things to my cooking blog). Usually I would blame things on work, but in this case I have been having hardware issues with my roaster.

Over the past few weeks, my usually ultra-consistent roasts have been all over the place. Some race through first crack into second with nary a "thank you, ma'am", and others struggle to achieve target temperatures. I have more or less convinced myself that I need a new heater/thermostat assembly for my Gene Cafe. One is winging itself my way as we speak, so hopefully I am back in action soon, and more importantly, I don't have to re-learn my machine. Stay tuned.

Costa Rica "La Margarita" Honey

2009-07-23T16:32:00.003-04:00

Use of "unconventional" processing (not wet-processed) coffee seems to have flourished in Central America over the past few years. The increased body and fruity flavors associated with leaving the fruity mucilage layer on the coffee seed longer is something that can be very attractive.

That being said, I get the sense that a lot of these coffees have forgotten their origins as really excellent coffees, letting the processing flavors take over too much. This particular coffee is special in that there is a really lively acidity that competes with the miel chewiness/waxiness.

Aromas from the roaster are often harbingers of things to come, and this is no exception. Flowers and malt, all the way. In the cup, that floral note continues, with more malt, milk chocolate, and some nuts. It is juicy and supremely drinkable, a honey coffee that hasn't forgotten its origins as a great Central.

Brazil Ipanema Tree-Dried Process

2009-07-13T16:19:00.003-04:00

Why do I keep buying Brazilian coffees? They all taste like one-dimensional, ashy coffees to me, with the exception of my beloved, Poco Fundo. Mmm, Poco Fundo (insert Homer Simpson voice)....

Anyway, I have been doing a lot of roasting for espresso lately, and I am always on the lookout for interesting coffees to add in. This one caught my eye because of the "tree dried" moniker, and the allusion to Oreo cookies in the review at Sweet Marias. Recall that I had tried a tree-dried coffee before, and it was interesting, so I bit for a pound.

I roasted this twice. The first time was in my standard treatment:

For some reason, this coffee raced from 1st to 2nd crack and got away from me. It ended up as a Vienna roast. In a second session, I blended it (pre-roast) with some Uganda Bugisu, and that was a more normal behavior during the roast.

As espresso, this was indeed redolent of an Oreo cookie. You got that chocolate cookie thing going on, with a very unusual creaminess to the body and taste that reminds you of that cookie center, which is of course nothing more than vegetable shortening and sugar.... It is certainly an interesting effect, but I found the whole thing a bit one-dimensional. It lacked that dynamism (is that a word?) that you get from a great dry-pricessed coffee, that core of spices and leather that keeps things interesting. Even blended with the Uganda, I just didn't find it interesting. Oh, well, another Brazil bites the dust. I am done with this origin, with the one exception.

Kenya Kiambu Peaberry -Ndumberi Coop

2009-06-30T12:32:00.004-04:00

There are a few things that really make you stop and appreciate life. The first blooming tulips in spring, taking a quiet evening walk, etc. To this, I will add the aroma of freshly roasted, quality Kenya coffee. A lot of people like to talk about resting coffee after roasting for a day or more, but to me this is just staling it. If you want to try something special, brew a vacuum pot of a really good Kenya coffee about 12 hours after you roast it. The aromas are so piercing, so floral, so sweet that there is almost nothing else like it.

Coffee is a seasonal crop, and I went some time without Kenyas in my stash. This coffee reminded me how much I missed it. Word on the street is that 2009 is going to be a great year for coffees from this origin, and I am looking forward to it in a big way.

After roasting a lot of coffees darker than I otherwise might have, working on the blend I previously talked about, I wanted to get a nice, crisp, light roast on this one:

The aromas of the grounds, and in the cup, are pure muesli: sweet toasted grains, brown sugar, and dried fruits. It is a heady aroma, almost intoxicating in its sweetness. The taste follows, with refreshing acidity, some green grape, and a chocolate note that gets more prevalent as the coffee ages a bit. For me Kenyas change very rapidly after roasting. Capturing that initial burst of aroma and fruit before the roast and chocolate notes take over is one of the purest pleasures of roasting your own, and something you can't get in storebought coffee. What a great cup.

The Mod Blend

2009-06-21T11:41:00.005-04:00

Normally I eschew blending of any sort, with the exception of espresso. Part of the allure of specialty coffee for me is that uniqueness of each coffee, how it represents the terroir of where it is from, etc. That being said, there are some cases where coffees aren't complete, so to speak, and benefit from some supporting characters.

Yesterday I went to a BBQ with some good friends. A few weeks before, I set out to put together a blend from things I had on hand in order to give away the coffee as a goodie bag to the attendees. It was surprisingly challenging.

I decided that this was to be a rich blend with the majority of coffees near the Full City regime in order to have a "crowd pleaser" quality, with some interesting twists. I roasted up some Tanzania and some Sumatra I had, and first tasted them individually. The Tanzania was funky and rustic with some melon notes, and the Sumatra was super sweet molasses. My expectation was that the Sumatra would win as the heart of the blend.

Interestingly, when combined 50:50, I didn't like it. The coffees clashed way too much. I gradually started to play around with ratios, and finally found something really nice at 4 parts Tanzania to every 2 of Sumatra. The sweetness of the Sumatra was just too powerful, and had to be toned down.

At this point, I had a decent base blend, but I wasn't happy with the aroma, the body, or the quality of the cup as it cooled. Looking through my coffee stashed, I came across some nice Mexican Chiapas, which has great body and a fruity taste. Adding a small amount (1/4 the amount of the Tanzania) provided a really nice fruity background without being overbearing, and helped the body quite a bit as the cup cooled. Finally, I played around with some intense Ethiopian dry processed coffee as a spice, and found that a minuscule amount was enough to really show in the aroma without being detectable in the taste.

So, the finally tally? 4:2:1:0.5 Tanzania:Sumatra:Chiapas:Ethiopia. The Tanzania and Sumatra were roasted to the verge of second crack (or just into it), and the other coffees lightly roasted to a City+ roast. The "Mod Blend" is aromatic berries in the aroma, rich, unctuous body with some funkiness, and a really interesting interplay of melons and berries as the cup cools. I am quite pleased indeed.

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Note: I am playing around with a cooking blog. We'll see if it lasts. You can check out my trials of recipes from Cook's Illustrated magazine here.

Ethiopia Wet Process Bonko

2009-05-18T12:30:00.003-04:00

I broke down recently and ordered a few more coffees which I don't need. My stash had run out of wet processed Ethiopian coffees, and there were a few interesting ones around, so....

On any given week my favorite coffees change a lot. One week it will be syrupy dry processed coffees, the next a light Mexican bean, and so on. However, I have a soft spot in my heart for wet processed Ethiopian coffees. I love the clarity of them, the intensely sweet citrus notes, so different from the brooding and fruited notes of their dry-processed brethren.

This coffee, with the delightful appellation of "Bonko" (a coffee mill) was roasted after a less successful roast of another WP coffee whose notes got lost in an unsuccessful attempt to get my roast log into a better electronic format. So much for progress. Here is the roast:

I tried to keep things fast and light, and was rewarded with a really spectacular coffee. In a vacuum pot the next day, it was so clean, so fruity and refreshing that it brought a smile to my face. There is no sourness or grassiness to it, despite the relatively light roast. There are lemons and graham intensely in the aroma, and that carries directly into the cup. As it cools, there is a touch of anise, surrounded with a sweetness that is so appealing. The acidity is bracing, but never jarring, playing so nicely with the citrus notes. I could drink this all day long. Highly recommended.

Uganda Bugisu Kawomera

2009-04-27T16:35:00.003-04:00

The previous version of Uganda Bugisu I have been drinking for a while has been running low. That coffee has become the base for a lot of espresso blending I have been doing; I love the earthy, malty complexity of it. It also makes a delicious cup of drip coffee.

Since good Uganda coffees can be hit or miss in terms of availability, I snatched 5 pounds of this Kawomera when it became available. This is a really excellent cup.

The roast was fairly standard:

The sounds got a bit hard to hear, but I stopped the roast at what I believe were the first few snaps of second crack. The taste confirms this. I really nailed this roast, if I do say so myself. The hint of roast taste was perfectly integrated with the coffee, without being overpowered or carbonized.

There is rustic maple sugar in the aroma, which carries over into the taste. There is a thick body, but the overall effect is still refreshing. This is not a coffee you take one sip of and put aside because it is too rich. As the cup cools a bit, there is the most interesting cherry cordial taste that becomes prominent. It is a very sweet cup, with lingering butterscotch hints. All and all excellent - that cherry taste is fascinating! I'll be very curious to try this as espresso later in the week.

One other point I should make. This is a good example of a roast/coffee that is taken rather dark (compared to what I normally roast), but still has tons of origin flavors. It goes to show you that a good roasted can take coffees to both ends of the roast spectrum while maintaining the identity of the coffee.

Tanzania Organic AB Hope Project

2009-04-14T12:10:00.003-04:00

The bad news is that this isn't the best Tanzanian coffee I have had in the past year or so. The good news is that it is a decent cup.

I have been trying to reduce my green coffee stash for the past few months with decent success. People at work have benefited greatly from this, since they are the victims of my coffee every week. When I saw a new Tanzania coffee crop up (pun intended)recently, I grabbed 5 pounds to try. Tanzania may well be my favorite coffee origin, so it was very hard to resist.

The roast was a standard affair:

This took a long time to get to first crack, which was odd. I didn't observe any temperature issues, so perhaps it was the bean itself. Grinding the beans, they looked quite light - this is a City+ roast - nowhere near second crack.

Drinking this over the past week, it is lighter bodied than I expected. It is balanced, with decent acidity. There is a dense nuttiness as well that I don't think I have encountered in a Tanzania coffee. In the background, there lurks some funk/jute/leather that reminds you that this is an African bean. It isn't unpleasant, but there is a "wilder" element to it. A day or two post-roast, a creamy cantaloupe character emerges, splashed with milk chocolate.

All in all, this is a nice cup, but it didn't blow me away. I need to play with the roast level a bit to see if I can improve it. I think a tad more roast might work well.

Guatemala Oriente Dry Process

2009-04-09T13:04:00.004-04:00

There is definitely a trend for Central American coffee producers to be trying their hands at more traditional methods of production such as dry processing. I have had some excellent examples of these over the past couple of years. This was a coffee that came and went at Sweet Marias, and I didn't get a chance to order any. I ended up trading some green coffee with someone else to get some of this to try. It is strange stuff.

Here is the roast, though it doesn't tell the story:

This coffee presented a conundrum in that it seems to race from 1st crack to 2nd very quickly. I rely on the sound of the cracks as a key indicator of how the coffee is roasting, and this one made all sorts of sounds that were hard to differentiate. Luckily the results were good, but I have honestly no idea what roast level this coffee is. Most likely Full City. Actually, I have roasted this coffee twice and had the same experience.

For those who have tried the truly bizarre Anokhi coffee, which is a different coffee variety altogether (coffea liberica v. coffea arabica), this Guatemala coffee is quite similar, but not nearly as intense.

The best analogy I can offer is Frankenberry cereal. There are odd berry notes galore, but not the clean fruit you get from say a Kenya, but fermented, slightly "off" fruit. There are some grainy notes and chocolate as well. The overall effect is slightly offputting, but not altogether unpleasant. I am glad I had a chance to try it, but I have no desire to have any more. For those who are bored by coffee, here is one to wake you up.

Zen and the Art of Knife Sharpening

2009-03-26T13:38:00.007-04:00

I was thinking recently of how modern man has changed so much from his forbears. The sheer amount of "on" time we have to deal with is astounding. Information flows at hyperspeeds, work hours are longer and longer, and even home time is filled with kids "playdates" (a byproduct of the modern age if ever there was one), homework, chores, and other various and sundry things. If you think about it, there is just so little downtime that we have to think and reflect. I find my soul craves that stillness so badly. Literally the only time I have during the day is about 10 minutes in the morning, sitting with my coffee, looking out the window, and getting ready to hop in the shower and go to work. No one is up besides me, there are no sounds besides the bubbling of my aquarium, and I am alone with my thoughts. Kind of sad....

Given all this, people tend to find unusual ways to find this stillness. Some people fix their cars, others stare blindly at the television, and some.... sharpen knives.

I am a fairly serious home cook, and as is often the case, I have acquired many tools of the trade. There is nothing more important to a cook then a good set of knives. Until fairly recently, I was content with the usual spate of European knives - the Henckels, Wustofs, etc. Then a friend introduced me to the glory that is Japanese cutlery, and there was no looking back.

Given the extreme hardness (and accompanying brittleness) of good steel, one must maintain the edges of your knives with some sort of sharpening media, generally waterstones. Doing this sharpening freehand presents many challenges since you must maintain the proper angles of each part of the bevel, the correct amount of pressure, etc. As you become more practiced, the repetitive motion, feel, and sound of sharpening can become quite, well, soothing.

I find myself setting time aside every now and then to work my knives on the stones. That time, that concentration, has become golden. Other thoughts drift away, and it becomes just the motion of the knife against the stone. It didn't really strike me until recently how much I value this time. There is the added bonus, of course, of achieving something difficult - insanely sharp instruments that simply can't be matched by most techniques. That actual building of something, something done with the hands, is important, and something that a lot us simply don't have anymore.

A couple of days I headed to Korin in Manhattan, and had a chance to watch a true master sharpener at work (see picture above). His movements were so economical, so quick, so effortless and graceful, that it was fascinating to watch. Also on display was the Japanese penchant for making task-specific tools; knives specifically for cutting octopus, for slicing sushi, and dispatching fish. I couldn't resist adding another knife to my arsenal, in this case a yanagi that doesn't fit well in this picture due to its length.

Roasting coffee, brewing excellent tea, sharpening knives, whatever - we all need to find that place where we can take a moment to relax and ponder the imponderables.

2008 Mengku Shuangjiang Bingdao Spring Cake

2009-03-21T15:03:00.004-04:00

Here is a chubby cake of pu'er tea:

I am a fan of this factory's teas. This Bingdao cake is a refined affair; beautiful leaves and just the perfect amount of compression.

This is actually my first taste of this particular cake, as it has been sitting in my tea cabinet patiently for a few months. I had samples of it previously, so I was finishing those up before digging into the cake itself. I sampled this today with about 6 grams of leaf in my favorite 100mL Yixing pot. I rinsed the leaves twice before ingesting anything.

1st infusion: very light. Grainy aroma, no bitterness. Sweet, but clearly the leaves haven't given up much.

2nd infusion: malted barley aroma, grassy. A hint of bitterness at the end. More complexity and sweetness.

3rd infusion: Now we are talking. Shiitake mushrooms, grains. Still a light tea, but a lot of subtlety here. Bitterness is picking up, but it is a caress, not a slap. I feel the energy in waves.

4th infusion: More of the same goodness. Long, long huigan. Some cooling sensation in the mouth, but it is light. My head is throbbing - a good sensation.

It soldiers on until I give in, but there is plenty more to be had. I like this tea, though it is quite light. I think it is a good example of a "one step up tea" compared to the plantation teas that are out there. It is refined and honest, with no tweaking to the soup; its charms are one to savor slowly while watching the world go by. Looking at the leaves, it is largely buds and small leaf/bud sets.

Espresso Blends #4 - #6

2009-03-16T16:37:00.003-04:00

This espresso blending thing is a lot more complicated than I originally thought. I am finding that even subtle changes can have a large effect on the shot. Iteration #3 was the best yet. As a reminder, it was the following:

50% Uganda Bugisu AA
25% Panama Lerida Estate "Miel"
10% Aged Sumatra
15% Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley '07

For the next variation, I decided to replace the Uganda base with some Brazilian coffee, in this case the Fazenda Barreiro that I did not care for as a single origin espresso. All other coffees and percentages were the same.

Net: yuck. I had low expectations, but this was terrible. I just hate that particular Brazil coffee. It just goes to show that you should take other people's recommendations with a grain of salt. This blend was 1-dimensional, woody dreck.

For blend #5, I decided to return to the successful #3 and try for a fruitier coffee. I upped the Ethiopia amount, and lost the aged Sumatra:

50% Uganda Bugisu AA
25% Panama Lerida Estate "Miel"
25% Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley '07

I also went a tad lighter in this roast, stopping at the onset of second crack. This was actually quite a nice blend. There was a lot of fruitiness in there, and the corresponding acidity level was increased as well. Shots of Misty Valley by itself remind me of the cherry liquor-filled chocolates that you can find, but in this blend it was tamed by the gentle earthiness of the other coffees. This blend rates as "very good", though it might be a bit intense for some people. Cappuccinos were interesting, coming out like strawberry milkshakes.

The last experiment was to swap out the Panama "miel" coffee for another coffee. I had some Costa Rica El Puente Caturra "Miel" hanging around, so I gave it a try in the "#3" blend:

50% Uganda Bugisu AA
25% Costa Rica El Puente Caturra "Miel"
10% Aged Sumatra
15% Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley '07

This again proved that if you don't like a coffee by itself, like the El Puente, don't waste your time blending it. This variation was flat, with some weird "off" notes to it.

I have blend #7 queued up at the moment. Stay tuned.

Sumatra Lintong Special Prep

2009-02-24T16:12:00.004-05:00

Man is work killing me. Every day brings new levels of insanity. Time to blog isn't high on the priority list... Sorry about the infrequent updates.

As an aside, I seem to be moving slower than I used to. It's funny, I am about to turn 40, and I sense a definite change in how I act physically. It is going to sound weird, but I find it much easier to hurt myself these days. I am a fit guy for my age (I think), and it seems to take less and less to strain a muscle, develop some unknown pain, etc. I also seem more likely to burn myself while cooking, cut myself, etc. I suppose it is a combination of getting older and being more distracted with work, etc. I find myself much more aware of my surroundings, how I stand up if I bend down to pick something up, thinking twice about whether to run after one of my kids, etc. It is very strange, and somewhat sobering. Scotto's growing up!

But enough depressing thoughts - on to the coffee. This week I have been enjoying the last of some Sumatra Lintong "Special Prep". In this case, "special" doesn't mean anything weird, like the Jacu Bird coffee, but is more of an indication of the care of the preparation, which is quite good for an Indonesian coffee. The roast treatment was fairly standard:

I admit as usual that I am not a huge fan of Sumatra coffees, but this one really hit the spot. There is an unexpected level of acidity which is very refreshing. The cup is sweetly herbal, sort of like Ricola candies. There is leather and spice, but it all comes together into a coherent whole, and isn't overpowering even at this roast level. It goes to show what a really nice Indonesian coffee can be, instead of the swampy, thick junk that is often passed off on us.

Espresso Blends #2 and #3

2009-02-13T16:36:00.002-05:00

Last time I talked about some espresso blending I am doing, or rather green bean blending for espresso. Here is where I started with Blend #1:

50% Uganda Bugisu AA
25% Mexico LaJoya bourbon
10% Aged Sumatra
15% Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley '07

This was a nice blend, but perhaps a bit too acidic from the Mexican coffee. For blend #2, I decided to add some more murky complexity by adding some Yemeni coffee, in this case Yemen Moka Mattari.

50% Uganda Bugisu AA
15% Mexico LaJoya bourbon
10% Yemen Moka Mattari
10% Aged Sumatra
15% Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley '07

This was roasted into second crack for about 30 seconds. As you might imagine from looking at the ingredient list, it produced some seriously rich, intense espresso. It was similar to the Moka Kadir blend that Sweet Maria's produces. Rich and spicy, with most of the acidity of blend #1 gone. I particularly liked this as straight espresso. In milk, however, I wasn't as thrilled. A lot of the complexity was gone and things weren't cutting through that well

Which brings us to iteration #3. Now I went back to #1 and replaced all the Mexican coffee with a "miel" coffee from Panama. Remember that "miel" means honey, and is a wet hulling process sort of in between wet and dry processing. It increases body and fruitiness at the expense of acidity and clarity.

50% Uganda Bugisu AA
25% Panama Lerida Estate "Miel"
10% Aged Sumatra
15% Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley '07

This was a super sweet espresso. The crema was incredible - super thick and mousse-like. I really liked this one in milk; it is perhaps the best of the bunch. Ristretto shots of this were particularly luscious, while normal shots were very good but not quite as stellar.

Lots of interesting data here; more experimentation is clearly needed.

Espresso Blend #1

2009-01-23T15:05:00.004-05:00

OK, if you read this, you need to promise me when I make it big in the coffee world, you won't steal my secrets. Then again, how do you know I am telling you the real blends? Mwa ha ha ha....

Ahem. Back to this post. As I mentioned previously, I have been playing around with coffees for espresso extraction. I have sampled a lot of stuff individually as so-called "single origin" (SO)espresso to get a sense of individual personalities. I'll remind you that the high-pressure extraction of espresso does strange things to coffee. Tasting something as drip coffee doesn't necessarily translate into the small cup.

I decided that I wanted to start with the excellent Uganda Bugisu AA I have. As a SO espresso, it is earthy, sweet, and supremely malty. It also does a good job cutting through milk. I decided to use that as a base and came up with the following:

50% Uganda Bugisu AA
25% Mexico LaJoya bourbon
10% Aged Sumatra
15% Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley '07

I was looking for something with decent complexity, very sweet, and subtly fruity. I roasted it just a few snaps into second crack about 5 days ago and had a chance to try it today for the first time. Not bad at all for a first attempt!

The straight shot was a bit more acidic than I planned for, but not unpleasantly so. It was fairly well balanced, medium bodied, with a long, lingering woody finish. I assume that is the result of the aged coffee. In milk, the maltiness of the Uganda came through, but things were a bit more muted than I would like.

There are a couple of ways I want to take this next time. First, I think swapping out a part of the Mexico for some Yemeni coffee would add some additional complexity and reduce the acidity. Also, I think substituting the Mexico for a pulp-natural Central American coffee would add more sweetness and some more body.

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Update made to Ethiopia Korate Wet Process

A parting salute

2009-01-21T12:07:00.002-05:00

I don't often feel a strong impulse to post here. I am a busy guy, and I fit blogging in with lots of other stuff. It gets lower priority than most other things, and I get around to it when I can. The events of the last few days, president-wise, have got me doing a lot of thinking, and I find a sudden strong need to write it down. This may not be the popular thing to say these days, but such is the soapbox I have that I'll use it.

Thank you, George W. Bush.

There, I said it. Get over it.

I think history will look kindly upon the two terms of Bush, though it will take a long time to see things properly through the lens of time. Was it perfect? By no means. Domestically I disagreed with the Republican spending spree, implicitly condoned by the president. The idiotic interest rate reductions and devaluing of the dollar by the Fed is part of why we are where we are today. On the international front, outsourcing the Iran problem to the feckless Europeans was a mistake, and the dealings with North Korea were laughable at best. Too free a hand with the various Secretaries of State, methinks. In the end, though it gets down to this:

Do you remember 9/11? I do.

On that day, everything changed for me. I lost family, and so did many others. I remember the sheer panic of that day, wondering whether my father and brother were alive. A cousin of mine, a great guy, was caught in an elevator while the fires raged. He stayed in the elevator and helped two women out first, just before the tower collapsed. He never left that elevator, but the ladies were able to escape.

I remember the anthrax attacks. I remember the uncertainty around whether we would be attacked again.

I remember the blackout of 2003, watching the sun go down outside my house and looking at the total lack of lights, wondering whether this was another attack.

I remember.

To this day I can't think about this stuff without getting very upset. I just had to step away from my computer after I typed this to cry a bit. I'm glad I am in my office eating lunch.

The simple fact is that we have been safe in the US since 9/11 while other places around the world have not been. I thank George W. Bush and our great men in uniform for this. I also have tremendous respect for a man who despite being so reviled never got vindictive or angry, but continued to do the right thing even when it wasn't politically expedient. It was shown yet again in the weeks during which power was smoothly transferred to the president-elect.

It saddens me that so many people seem to have forgotten about that day and what came after. It is human nature to want to put those sorts of memories behind you. But you know what? Your ability to do that at its very essence was made possible by George W. Bush's administration. In a strange way I am glad that people can complain about how things were handled, about how we should do things different. That means that it is working; we are winning, though it is far from over.

And what about our next president? Well, I couldn't disagree more philosophically with him. Still, though, he won fair and square, so he deserves his chance. He'll have my support, if not my agreement. I think he'll find things not quite so easy when the mantle of power is upon him, and I hope he can make the same kind of tough decisions that his predecessor made without thought for personal gain or politics.

A Bing Dao Mystery

2009-01-20T14:20:00.003-05:00

A while ago I ordered a bunch of samples from Scott at Yunnan Sourcing, including a couple of samples of teas with leaves (supposedly) from BingDao (Ice Island). I think I was prompted by a post over at the Half Dipper, briefly talking about Bingdao and its (supposed) cooling sensation that the tea imparts in the mouth. I am a fan of minty/menthol/camphor types of tastes in pu'er tea (interestingly, I am not much of a mint guy in foods), so I splurged on a couple. I ordered a 2008 Mengku Shuangjiang Bingdao, and a 2002 CNNP Bingdao.

OK, now it gets interesting. When the teas arrived from China - sparking a bout of eye-rolling from my wife when she had to receive the box from the postperson - the two sample bags were labeled identically, both as the 2008 Mengku. Which was which?

Looking at the tea, they were clearly different. One was a more brownish color, presumably the 2002 tea (you may have to zoom in to see the difference):

As an aside, has anyone noticed that chunks of pu'er tea look just like something you would scrape off the bottom of your shoe on a muddy day? Yum.

Tasting them over a few days, it was confirmed again that they were different. The younger looking and tasting tea had notes like this:

6g in 120mL gaiwan at work. Medium compression, somewhat tippy. Aroma is unique - cotton candy, camphor, sweet 'shroom, low-toned and earthy. Quite rich in taste, pungent, long huigan. Lots of energy in this one - my hands are shaking and my head is throbbing a bit. Also, there is a nice cooling sensation in the mouth.

And the second, presumable older tea:

This is a really nice adolescent pu'er. It has picked up enough of that aged character to be interesting; mahogany, leather, old books. No sign of wet mustiness. The flavor is very sweet and there is a decent cooling sensation on the tongue. Quite nice and a reasonable price for a 6 year old tea. The aroma alone is worth the price of admission.

and later:

2002 CNNP Bingdao. There is a bit of a mystery about this tea. I have it as a sample, which was part of a group which were mislabeled. I am almost certain I am drinking this particular tea, but I have another sample for confirmation coming in my next order from China. A couple of folks have cakes of this that they weren't happy with, but this sample is excellent. Rich and oily, with aromas of old books and charred wood. Nice rust color, perfectly clear. The characteristic bingdao cooling sensation is there as well

Based on those tastings, I picked up a cake of the 2008 Mengku. At the same time, there was still a bit of lingering doubt about the tea I thought was the 2002 CNNP, so I asked Scott to throw in another (properly checked and labeled) sample for me to verify things.

Guess what? This tea tasted different yet again. Either I am seeing variation from sample to sample, or the original tea I received was something else entirely. Since it was the tastiest of the bunch, it is a shame that I don't know what it is. I am tempted to pick up a cake of the 2002 CNNP BingDao to assuage my curiousity, but I think I am going to let this mystery stay the way it is.

Brazil Pocos de Caldas - Fazenda Barreiro

2009-01-12T12:17:00.003-05:00

Have you ever gotten really excited about something based on its description and then ended up being totally disappointed after you got it? That pretty much sums up my experience with this coffee. I have been doing a lot of thinking about espresso lately, and trying to come up with a blend of my own. Before even getting to that, however, I have been exploring individual coffees to get a taste picture in my mind, hoping that will make things easier.

Quoting Tom from SweetMarias:

"... This is a very unusual and complex coffee, and has won quite a few accolades: BSCA and COE in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, and Illy award in 2007. The dry fragrance is has strong nut tones, sunflower seed, and savory qualities. There are hints of fresh leather, which perhaps doesn't seem like something you want to smell in your coffee, but it is very attractive in this cup! The aromatics have hints of ripe muscat grape and a bit of banana sweetness, as well as hazelnut roast tonality. Cup flavors are so unique, with toasted almond, savory spice, honey and bee pollen sweetness. The cup is very dense, oily, thick. I get a raw sunflower seed flavor, and hints of olive oil. The overall flavor profile is concentrated in the middle ranges, without high acidic effect or (at my City+ cupping roast) dark, pungent deep tones. As it cools, it seems thicker and thicker. I start to get a single-malt scotch flavor from the coffee, with a tiny suggestion of roasted red pepper. For me, this is a unique flavor experience overall, that might have aspects of Indonesian coffee (low acidity, rustic sweetness), even Aged Sumatra (leathery hints), but is also unique when I line it up against other natural and pulp-natural Brazils on the cupping table. I can easily pick it out of the line-up every time in blind cupping."

Wow - sounds awesome, doesn't it? I picked up a pound and roasted it a few snaps into second crack:

This had some seriously dry, leathery aromas during roasting.

Bottom line - I wasn't impressed. In fact, I felt a bit let down. As espresso, I found it quite one-dimensional. Low acid, dry and leathery, but without any interesting character to it. I played around with temperature, time, and grind, and couldn't find a good operating point. As drip coffee it was a bit better - waxy bittersweet chocolate was the theme. I am just not a fan of Brazil coffees with the exception of Poco Fundo, I suppose.

Let's Talk Tea, and eFriends

2009-01-06T12:27:00.003-05:00

Well, the title of this blog refers to coffee and tea, but I have been remiss in discussing anything about tea. Part of that is the fact that there are so many good tea blogs out there, the quintessential one being the Half Dipper, which you can link to from the left side of the page. From there, there are many other links to other blogs. I am not sure I have anything unique to add, and I am such a poor photographer, so I have hesitated to say anything.

That being said, I spend a lot of time drinking and thinking about tea, most particularly pu'er, that unique, Chinese, ageable, funky product that comes in frisbee-sized disks and other unique shapes. For those not familiar with the story of pu'er, WikiCha is a good resource, and David does a great job of discussing these teas as well at the Half Dipper. I think I am going to have some entries around tea and see how it goes, the first one a bit about some Bing Dao teas I have been drinking lately, and a mysterious set of unlabeled samples.

Thinking about tea started me thinking about TeaChums I have who pass around samples of tea to each other, and then into the broader category of what I call eFriends. This is a peculiar development of the internet era. In principle the growth in internet forums and other pastimes would seem to make humans less likely to interact with each other in real life. Everyone hides behind the written word, with facades and made-up attributes; sitting in front of a computer and developing eRelationships that don't exist beyond the electrons flying over the computer wires.

That's not always the case, though. I spend a fair amount of time on internet forums, and I have formed friendships with many people. What is a bit peculiar is that I interact with them in physical ways. I regularly send coffee and teas that I think are interesting to other people I have met on the internet, and have received much in return. One friend has lent me items from his kitchen to try out, others have sent me aftershaves and colognes, and the list goes on. My wife is somewhat leery, and I think a bit jealous. She has become used to packages showing up at the door from people, and now recognizes many of the names by sight. The fact that I have "internet friends" seems entirely natural to me. In some cases, I have gone as far as meeting people in person. It is always fascinating to compare the impression your mind has formed on the basis of the written word to the real thing.

So why do I mention this? I think that it is a small but good sign for the human race. I think that while internet interactions and eFriends are great, I don't think this is the end of the human race, with all of us shut up by ourselves in front of computers, becoming a race of mole-men afraid to come out of our darkened rooms. The real human need of contact, whether face to face, or by the sharing of physical objects, will still shine through. For someone like myself, who expresses himself well enough through the written word, but is an incredibly shy and reserved person in real life, all this becomes an important outlet.

So let's all have some fun, drink some good coffee, tea, or spirits, and talk to each other. This way when the machines take over, we'll be ready with our counter-attack strategy

A New Year

2009-01-05T12:15:00.003-05:00

First and foremost, a Happy and Healthy New Year to everyone!

It has been about a month since I updated anything here. The first two weeks of that were out-of-control workloads and insanity in my day job, leading up to my vacation. After that was a (mostly) blissful two weeks at home over the holidays, doing little other than spending time with my family, and EATING.

Under normal circumstances I am a guy who leads a healthy lifestyle. I get up early every morning and hit the gym, eat more or less healthy stuff, cook a lot so I know I am eating non-processed foods, etc. However, the last few weeks of every year I let myself go nuts and eat a whole lot of crap. In addition, I cook a bunch of meals for Christmas, New Years, etc. that have become a bit of a tradition in my family, which are, shall we say, a bit on the heavy side. At this point, I am feeling awfully bloated, so I was happy to brave the ice today to hit the gym.

For those who want a bit more information on what I have been cooking, here you go:

Christmas Day(I am Jewish, but what the hey ;-) )
Roasted duck with port wine & rosemary reduction
Lyonnaise potatoes, cooked in the duck fat
Sticky Toffee Pudding
Wine: a bottle of 1994 Raymond Reserve Cabernet

New Years Eve
Roasted Rack of lamb with red wine sauce
Smashed red skin potatoes with butter, cheese, and chives
Honey glazed carrots
Chocolate Mousse
Wine: a bottle of 1999 Chateau de Beaucastel. Oh, man was this fantastic....

And so on; last night I made a 9 pound ham for two adults and three young kids. Why? No idea, really.

As for coffee, I have had some good, some bad. Honestly, I haven't had the energy to really intellectualize over it lately. I roast, I enjoy, and that is that for the most part. I do get the sense, however, that I am missing something. I am not sure whether it is equipment, roasting profiles, or something else, but I feel like I am on the verge of learning something important, but I don't know what it is. Hopefully 2009 will provide some insight.

Lastly, this blog. What now? Does anyone really give a hoot about coffee roasting profiles? Likely not. These pages do serve as my roasting log, however, and I use them as such. I also have been drinking a huge amount of teas, which I could in principle talk about. There are so many good tea blogs out there already that I am not sure my voice adds anything to the mix. We shall see.

Kenya auction Lot #643 - Mutitu

2008-12-09T12:31:00.003-05:00

It has been a few weeks since my last update. Thanksgiving vacation intervened, plus I was fighting germs on and off for a while, and lastly I just didn't feel like writing. Such is life.

This coffee was hidden in the back of my coffee cabinet. My wife was doing some organizing (surprise, surprise for those who know her), and ended up moving some stuff around, uncovering a pound of these beans. No comments were made about the sheer volume of coffee I have, which attests to her awesomeness.

I haven't had a Kenya coffee for a while, so it was time to go for some tooth-peeling acidity and some otherworldly aromas. I roasted this lightly:

Unfortunately I forgot to write down when I ended the roast, but I am pretty sure it was 16 minutes or less.

Some Kenyas hide their powerful acidity, but not so with this Nyeri-region coffee. It is intense stuff. The aroma is all peaches in syrup. I could sniff this stuff all day. There is a thick body, and very strong and refreshing acidity. This roast was perfect, but beware of under-roasting this one or it is going to be puckeringly sour. The peaches carry into the taste, with some spice notes added. This is a coffee you could drink a lot of and not get tired. Very nice.

__________________________________________
Note added to Sumatra "Harimau Tiger"

Brazil Jacu Bird Coffee

2008-11-20T12:01:00.003-05:00

I'd really like to know who first thought of the idea of using the coffee beans that animals ingested and then pooped out. The guy (I am pretty sure it must have been a guy) is either an idiot or a genius. Actually, likely the latter given what these coffees go for. You may be familiar with kopi luwak (easily googleable, if that is a word), the product of an Indonesian rodent with a taste for coffee cherries. This stuff goes for >$100 per pound in places. The theory is that the animal only eats the ripest coffee cherry, thereby "sorting" the best from the worst. In reality, however, the rodent eats low-grade robusta beans similar to what you get in a can of Folgers, so hang onto your wallet.

Last year a different product began to emerge, this time from Brazil. The coffee consumer is the Jacu bird, a cute creature that lives on coffee farms in Brazil:

In principle, this avian aficionado eats high quality arabica beans from the same farms that already produce great coffee. It is still pricey, ~$17 per pound, but it is being offered by some purveyors who I trust for quality, so I decided to try a pound out.

This being a Brazilian coffee, I decided to take it into second crack a bit:

It looks and roasts like any other dry processed coffee. And the cup? Let me tell you - this coffee got more rave reviews than any other coffee I bring into work, and this is without telling them what it was. My wife, also slipped a cup without telling her, also waxed philosophic about it. Of course, then I did the "you drank poopy coffee" dance around the kitchen in true infantile fashion....

It is a sweet, sweet cup with intense maple syrup tastes. Smooth and delicious, and no trace of the, er, unusual processing. I am looking forward to some espresso extractions with it as well.

Kona Kowali Estate, Second Roast

2008-11-18T09:37:00.002-05:00

I have been sick for the past week and a half or so, hence the lack of updates. I don't much care for coffee when I am fighting a cold, so I generally either don't drink it at all, or otherwise I roast something nondescript since I can't taste it anyway.

Besides being ill, work has been more awful than usual lately, so I decided to roast up something special this week to make me feel better. I had a half pound of this Kona coffee left over, so I gave it a whirl. If you remember, I talked about this one before. At that time, I wasn't thrilled with it at a lighter roast. This time around I took it darker, to a Full City roast. Poking around, it seems like general consensus for island coffee is that it works better at this roast level, or perhaps even a tad into second crack.

Here is the profile:

What a difference more roast makes for this bean! There is an intense maltiness that I love; if you enjoy chocolate malts made with high quality ice cream and real malted milk powder, you will have a good idea of what is going on in the cup. It is incredibly rich and complex; a very satisfying cup. Of course, it is still way overpriced for what you get, but I am glad that I at least found a better roast to accentuate this coffee's character.

Yemen Mokha Ismaili

2008-11-05T12:31:00.001-05:00

This week we have something perfect for cooler fall weather. This is one of the best Yemeni coffees I have tried, and is unfortunately the last of it in my stash. This stuff is a bit of a pain to roast. The seeds are really tiny - easily 2X smaller than most coffees. The heat transfer to the beans is different, and there are no audible cues like you have for most coffees. It really is roasting "by the seat of your pants", with highly variable results. I'd like to be able to tell you the specifics of the roast level here, but honestly I have no clue. All I know that it is darn good coffee. Here is the profile:

This is a deep, syrupy coffee with incredible spice-bazaar aromas. I can't put my finger on specific tastes, though you can look through the review below to get some idea. It is a very complex coffee that is hard to pick out individual notes. Just relax and enjoy a fairly unusual and seriously rich cup o' joe.

Panama Esmerelda Gesha, 2007 Vintage

2008-11-03T12:32:00.004-05:00

I decided to go upscale for my Halloween roasting session. In 2008, I purchased two kinds of Panama Esmerelda; the Lot #5, previously discussed, and the more expensive Lot#10. I was originally planning to roast Lot#10, but I decided to try my chops on the last of my Esmerelda stash from 2007 first. This stuff is ferociously expensive, so I wanted to make sure I didn't dork it up.

The roast was more or less what I have been using lately:

I was shooting for a City+ roast (roughly half way between first and second crack), but this came out considerably lighter than I was expecting. Grinding the beans I was somewhat taken aback on how light it was. As an aside, it is hard to tell much of anything from whole bean color after roasting, you really need to look at the color of the ground stuff.

It is a testament to the quality of the beans that even at this light a roast, there was no sourness. There is the usual Gesha panoply of aromas - over the top floral characteristics - and typical juicy notes to the coffee. However, I missed the caramel notes that fit everything together. Another minute of heat would have been perfect in retrospect. Looking back through my notes of Gesha roasting over the years, I see that they tend to take a bit more roast than other coffees to hit the right flavor balance. Surely nothing near second crack, but a bit of time spent after first. This was certainly an enjoyable cup, but nothing to write home about. Given the price point, it is unfortunate. At least I am prepared for roasting Lot #10.

Ethiopia Korate Wet Process

2008-10-28T11:58:00.007-04:00

I have posted on this coffee before. At the time, I wasn't happy with the roast. This time around I decided to keep it very light. As you'll see in the profile this time around, the overall roast time was several minutes shorter than the last time I roasted it. It had a huge effect.

This roast came out awesome. Super flowery aromas, great acidity and sweetness. Extremely clean cup with tons of complexity. I am usually pretty good about identifying individual flavors, but this one is hard to explain. It is a coffee to linger over and explore as the cup cools. Just delicious.

This is definitely a difficult coffee to get right. It needs a very light roast or it comes across as dull-tasting. There is a narrow needle to thread, but if you nail it, it is well worth it.

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Addendum 1/23/09

I roasted this coffee again, and had the best results to date. This time around, I used a slightly different profile, lingering at a lower intermediate temperature. It was perfect - all candy - Lemonheads, Jolly Ranchers, etc. Sweet, acidy, not a trace of graininess/grassiness. Just a great cup.

Sumatra Mandheling DP "Harimau Tiger"

2008-10-27T12:46:00.003-04:00

I am not generally a huge fan of low-acid Indonesian coffees, though they are a nice change of pace. I was running low on my (already limited) stock of Sumatra, so I decided to pick some of this coffee up. A lot of people like Sumatra, and I give a lot of coffee away, so I decided to be a good citizen.

Sumatras can be somewhat on the softer side, and the altitude they are grown at can be lower than many other origins, so I was gentle with the profile. The mid temperature was 440 degrees, about 10 degrees lower than I would have it for, say, an Ethiopia or Central American bean.

This roast drove me batty. For a while I was convinced that my roaster wasn't working correctly. There was no sound whatsoever at first crack, and little to no chaff released. This is very odd for a dry-processed coffee, which tend to shed a lot of chaff. Combine that with the fact that this coffee colors very slowly, and it was a bit of a guessing game to complete the roast. In the end I had to rely entirely on my nose.

Colors can really trick you when roasting. For instance, Sumatras stay quite light through most of the roast, even into second crack. If you rely on this as an indicator, you are toast. On the other end of the spectrum are Kenyan coffees, which are darker than normal for the degree of roast. You really need to use all your senses when you are roasting.

Anyway, despite the tricky roast, this turned out to be a really good coffee. My notes read:

Aroma: Maple syrup, cedar wood, sweet sandalwood
Taste: Very clean for a Sumatra. Foresty, sweet, surprising amount of snap, sorghum, woody

This coffee addresses a lot of what I dislike in Sumatra coffee. There is no wet bogginess, not too much funk. It has a surprising amount of acidity, and is very sweet. If you want a cleaned up Indonesian cup, this one's for you.

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Addendum 12/9/08

I roasted more of this for a friend, and took it into second crack. Somewhat surprisingly, I was not happy with it. There was no character except burnt wood. This particular bean seems happiest at Full City, perhaps consistent with its "cleaned up" Indonesian character.

Kenya Gethumbwini Peaberry

2008-10-23T13:27:00.002-04:00

I have talked about this coffee before. This particular batch is from a different crop, the so-called "fly crop". Don't ask me why it is called that, but it is essentially a smaller, later crop than the main one.

This profile was a bit different than last time. I took it slow this time around:

I am not sure whether it is this new crop or the profile, but the coffee isn't as exciting this time around. If I had to guess, it is the coffee itself since I have used this profile before with the same coffee.

This is a bit tricky to roast. The seeds are tiny little ball bearings, and there is nary a crack to be heard. You have to work from sight and smell to detect first crack, and there is a bit of guesswork involved. The aromas while roasting are second to none, though.

The tastes are as before - strong acidity, blackberry, and an herbal quality. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't bad coffee by any stretch of the imagination, but it didn't jump out of the cup the same way it had before. I have some more of this, so I'll be interested to roast it again and see what happens.

SO espresso and a tutorial

2008-10-17T21:34:00.005-04:00

Sometimes I forget to mention how certain coffees fare under pressure. I have been playing around a lot with single-origin (SO) espresso lately, using some of the same coffees I have talked about here. Espresso is a tricky business; the pressure extraction can really accentuate some unpleasant notes in coffee, especially acidity. This is the reason espresso roasts are often darker and/or blended. Still, there can be great pleasure in playing with one individual bean.

The real standout lately has been the Uganda Bugisu. Roasted to Full City or a bit more, this is decent as espresso. In milk, however, it is absolutely transformed. It cuts through the milk with a dynamite earthy/chocolately taste. The cappuccinos with it have been some of the best I have made.

Also, the Rwanda Gkongoro, which was merely mediocre as drip coffee, excelled as espresso as well. Some of the gamey African notes come alive, and there is enough acidity to keep things interesting.

Lastly, I have been drinking a Full City roast of Ethiopia Biloya as espresso and cappuccino's lately. This makes a nice fruity espresso, but in milk it turns very interesting. I get a liquory quality to it, with strong cinnamon notes, almost like a cinnamon schnapps. Weird, but good.

On a separate note, I recently put together a pictorial of the roasting and brewing process on Badger and Blade. You can find it here. Enjoy!

Rwanda Gkongoro Nyarusiza

2008-10-15T20:17:00.008-04:00

Rwanda is a new origin for me. This is the first coffee I have tried from this country, and I was interested to see what it is like. It is fascinating how different areas produce such different coffees. Circle 'round Lake Victoria, and let's see what we have:

Kenya is the home of super-high-toned, winey and acidic coffees, Tanzania is similar, but more toned down. Uganda is more like an Indonesian coffee, low acid and brooding. What will Rwanda be?

Boring.

Roasted to Full City, this is a nice, bittersweet, simple cup. Pleasant enough, but nothing to really stand out in my opinion. There is a very faint blackberry note in there, but overall it got some yawns in my house. Perhaps one could generously call it "balanced".....

Oh, and here is the profile:

Mexico La Joya Chiapas 100% Bourbon

2008-10-13T20:35:00.002-04:00

This is a coffee I roasted for my wife's PTA meeting later this week. I try and keep around a stock of coffee that tastes like, well... coffee. I figure not everyone wants their coffee to taste like fruit, wine, etc. I picked up a few pounds of this last year, and I really need to start using it up.

I have roasted this coffee a lot in the past, and like most bourbon varietal coffees, it takes color beautifully. However, the lighter roasts I have done with it haven't been appealing, being sour and characterless for the most part. Interestingly, a few months ago I gave away some of this, roasted into second crack, for a friend to use as espresso. Unfortunately I didn't taste it before I gave it away, because it got rave reviews. Apparently some nice orange tastes came into play.

This time around I decided to take it to a Full City roast:

I think I am getting to the point where I can tell a Chiapas coffee from its aroma. There is crumbled earth and a mild fruitiness that blends in perfectly. It reminds me of the soil of Mexico, fertile and rich. The taste is traditional coffee; nothing too unusual. There is that gentle fruitiness; nothing too intense, but something keep your interest as you finish the cup. The roast notes were perfectly blended as well, with some bittersweet notes going on. Overall a nice coffee; nothing to make me want to buy more, but a real crowd pleaser.

Kenya AA Lot#758 Hiriga

2008-10-06T13:46:00.003-04:00

I haven't roasted any coffees from Kenya lately, so it was time to dig deep in the stash. This coffee is from the Nyeri region of Kenya, home to some deeply-fruited and intense coffees. I strayed from the profile I have been using lately, adding a couple of minutes of higher temperature before first crack, and then lowering to finish the roast:

With Kenyas, I really like to have a vacuum pot within 12 hours or so of roasting, unlike many other coffees that benefit from rest. The aromas are second to none early after the roast, and I hate to miss that. This coffee didn't disappoint in that respect, with deep cardamom scents. That first cup was effervescent and acidy without being sour. There is deep black currant and other fruit notes, and the body is pure silk.

Interestingly, drinking the same coffee a couple of days later in the Technivorm brewer, it is tasting kind of dull. I am not sure if this is due to the modified roast profile, or perhaps the natural evolution of the coffee after roasting. I'll continue to enjoy it throughout the week and see where it goes.

Costa Rica El Puente "Caturra Miel"

2008-10-03T13:38:00.002-04:00

"Miel" means honey in Spanish, and also refers to a coffee preparation method. Also sometimes called "pulp natural", or "semi-washed", it refers to removing the skin of the ripe coffee cherry and then leaving the fruity mucilage layer in contact with the seeds for some time before eventually removing everything down to the bare seed. These coffees have some additional sweetness, lowered acidity, and some fruity character compared to a fully washed coffees. It is not as intense as a fully dry-processed coffee, but somewhere in between.

I have had a few miel coffees from Central America that I have liked very much, which is why I purchased this coffee. Unfortunately, this one got somewhat mixed reviews.

First of all the profile:

Interestingly, I had less volume of finished coffee than I usually have. I am not sure if that is due to the coffee variety or something I did.

Tasting this coffee in a vacuum pot the day after roasting, I found it on the weird side. There was tannic nut skins and soy sauce going on. Medium bodied and sweet, with Brazil nuts and a strong lemondade brightness. It was somewhat disjointed, and that salty soy character really bothered me.

Later in the week after roasting, it came together better. There was less soy and more integrated chocolate and nut tones, with lower acidity and a strong sweetness. I definitely enjoyed it more than that first cup, but this is not a coffee I would buy more of. It might be interesting roasted darker and used for espresso extraction.

Tanzania NgoroNgoro Convent

2008-09-30T12:51:00.001-04:00

As I have said before, I am a huge fan of Tanzanian coffees. Unfortunately there is so much generic "Tanzania Peaberry" out there which is pure dreck, people aren't aware of the really unique microlots of quality coffee from Tanzania. This coffee is from last year, and was one of my favorites. Unfortunately this was my last half pound of it, though I have some other interesting beans from this origin hanging around.

Interestingly, this coffee farm is managed by nuns. It is also from an incredible high alitude - better than 1800m - which leads to some serious density in the coffee seeds. Coffee trees at these altitudes mature extremely slowly, which is one of the reasons the coffee is so complex. Compare a high altitude coffee like this to a low-grown Brazil or Island variety and there is no comparison.

This was roasted quite lightly to emphasize the varietal notes. The aroma is intense pear and caramel. The fruity notes continue in the cup, with a nice brightness and chewy mouthfeel. Lurking in the back of all this is a hidey note, what cuppers generously call "rustic", which lets you know this is an African coffee. All in all, this coffee has everything going for it. I hope the nuns produce more this year

Profile:

Ghetto Lattes and Moral Codes

2008-09-26T16:19:00.003-04:00

The term "Ghetto Latte" has entered common use in the US. I am not a huge fan of the term itself, but it does raise some interesting questions that get bandied about at work.

For those who aren't familiar with the term, it describes an action wherein someone orders an espresso in a large cup, then adds milk from the free mixers area at the cafe, thereby circumventing the more expensive order of a latte or cappucino.

I work with some highly educated, highly paid individuals, and it is fascinating to get people's opinions on whether this behavior is right or wrong. Personally, I think it more or less amounts to fraud or theft. After all, if you want a latte, you should order it instead of essentially stealing the milk.

Needless to say, these moral questions can be used as a springboard for lots of amusing lunchtime conversation. I have appended a few of them that have been actively discussed, along with my personal views. If you have any opinions on the matter, speak out!

(Q) If upon ordering a Cafe Americano, Starbucks asks "Would you like room for milk?" - is it still immoral to turn this into a ghetto latte?
(A) An Americano can be considered equivalent to a standard cup of coffee. You are free to add a splash of milk to your taste. I would say up to 10-15% of total volume. The "Ghetto Latte" term is reserved for those ruffians who order an espresso in a large cup such that they can rob the poor store owner of milk.

(Q) If one purchases tea, what ratio of milk to tea is considered allowable under the Scotto Moral Code?
(A) I would treat tea as above - up to 10-15% of total volume.

(Q) Isn't the business owner figuring the Ghetto Latte as part of their standard losses in their business plan?
(A) Perhaps, but theft is theft

(Q) Let's say that you have a young child. You enter a cafe where milk is clearly on the menu, but you have a bottle with you. Is it ok not to purchase milk?
(A) Presumably you are in the cafe to purchase something yourself, not to take up their space for free. On this one, I would say it is ok to use the bottle.

(Q) Let's say you have multiple children. Is it ok to purchase one drink for them to share? Or must each individual purchase their own drink?
(A) Sharing is one of the things that separates us from lower forms of life. Go ahead.

I'll add more as these difficult moral questions arise.

Costa Rica CoE#20 El Patio

2008-09-25T16:18:00.002-04:00

This roast was for pride.

Costa Rica El Patio was one of my favorite coffees from last year. I had bought 5 pounds of it last summer, and I was delighted with its delicate character. During the course of my September of Experiments Gone Awry, I had roasted some of this coffee and was appalled at how lousy it was. It was time to re-roast this again at my old profile to ensure I had my mojo back.

The profile:

Drinking it a couple of days later, I thought "this is the El Patio I know and love". It is a very changeable coffee as the cup cools. Tasted within a day or two of roasting, it is deep milk chocolate malt. It reminds me of a Nestle Crunch candy bar. Later it turns jammy and sweet, with apricot preserve notes. All this is quite delicate and lovely. Really a great cup.

It's good to be back.

El Salvador CoE#11 Santa Maria

2008-09-22T09:59:00.002-04:00

Finally! After a September of barely passable coffee due to various experiments chronicled here, enough was enough. I decided to return to some tried and true roasting profiles to enjoy some excellent coffee. I am pleased to say things are back on track.

The first is this El Salvadorean coffee, the 11th place winner in this year's El Salvador Cup of Excellence program. You can read more about the farm and coffee here.

Here is the roast profile:

This is a very good coffee. In a way, it reminds me a bit of the Gesha varietal coffees in that there is an intense flowery aroma and a powerful sweetness to the cup. I get intense, clean red fruits in the taste; grapes, cherries, etc. Very lively acidity, as one would expect. This is a juicy and refreshing cup. The flavors were well developed with this roast profile.

I also re-roasted some Costa Rican coffee with this same profile, which I'll post on in a bit. After the detour around alternate roast profiles, it is good to be back on track.

Drats!

2008-09-16T16:49:00.004-04:00

Well, after the latest round of roasting, I have to consider the latest set of experiments a failure. It is actually a great example of how it is important to understand your own particular parameters and not take what the experts say as gospel.

To recap, I have been playing around with dwell times at the start of the roast at a lower temperature than I previously had. The last couple of coffees have been ok, but something has been nagging at me. Sunday I roasted some Costa Rica El Patio, a coffee I have roasted many times before with this new profile. It follows more or less the Costa Rica Vino de Arabia profile from the last posting.

The El Patio is normally a delicate cup filled with milk chocolate tastes. It is one of my favorites. This time around, however, what I found was strong astringency that isn't integrated well with the other flavors. It is really glaring, and not a subtle thing at all. Checking the color of the ground coffee, it is not under-roasted - this is clearly an effect of the profile. In any case, I will be returning to my original roast profiles with shorter drying times and higher temperatures for the middle part of the roast from now on.

It definitely pays to experiment. The theory is still a good one to ponder. It is all about water; there are competing reactions that go on at different temperatures of the bean during the roasting process. The theory says that too much water left in the coffee after the drying stage will lead to the formation of bitter and astringent tastes, so it is important to dry thoroughly before reaching caramelization temperatures. I am going to ponder this some more, but in the meantime I need to roast some coffees with my older profiles so I can get back to the stellar brews I have become used to.

Costa Rica Vino de Arabia

2008-09-15T11:00:00.003-04:00

I am still not sure that I am barking up the right tree on the latest set of experiments. I have roasted a few more coffees with similar profiles to the last (starting the roast out much slower); the results have been good, but something has been nagging at me.

Last Friday I roasted some Costa Rica Vino de Arabia. I followed a similar profile to the Tanzania Blackburn Estate, thoroughly drying the beans early, keeping the temperature low until the coffee turns yellow, and then ramping to the final temperature:

This coffee is layered, layered, layered. A very interesting beast. It has the typical Costa Rica chocolate, nuts, etc. At the same time there is a deep fruitiness, reminiscent of red wine and ripe plums, that comes in and out as the cup cools. Quite complex, but perhaps a bit too complex for my taste.

A few days out and I am getting a bit of sourness in this roast which is unexpected. Either I have been under-roasting a bit (I got something similar in a roast of Ethiopia Biloya I did a few days ago), or if this profile is flawed. My gut tells me something is up with this profile.

Interestingly, when I look back at my notes from the past several months, I am finding two basic profiles, both with roughly the same starting and ending points. The difference is the middle section of the roast at intermediate temperature. Origially, I was placing this closer to the finish temperature of the coffee, 440-450 degrees. The more recent profiles have dwelled at the 400 degree range. There is clearly a difference, and one that would benefit from some blind tasting.

Tanzania Blackburn Estate AA

2008-09-10T14:50:00.003-04:00

After the poor results from the last couple of coffees, it was time to rethink things a bit. I am not ready to give up on the experimentation quite yet. Remember that the "conventional wisdom" was to dry the coffee thoroughly and get to a uniform yellow color before raising the temperature to caramelize the beans. I presume this strategy is easy to execute on a commercial roaster, but it is turning out to be a challenge on a consumer machine like the Gene Cafe I am using.

This time around, I decided to spend some time at a higher initial temperature, trying to account for the unknown differential between the bean temperature and the environmental temperature, then raise the temperature slightly to turn the beans yellow, and then ramping up to roasting temperature. To wit:

I waited for the coffee to turn yellow (2 minutes into the second stage) before cranking it up. This roast turned out very well. It is a very dynamic coffee; strong acidity, but no sourness. It is sweet caramel all the way, with some interesting syrupy notes (boysenberry?). As often is the case with Tanzanian coffees, there is a subtle hint of funk at the end, perhaps leather or burlap. Nothing to detract from the cup, but something to let you know its origin. Interestingly, I also got a strong green apple taste the first day or so, which faded as time went on. I really enjoyed this coffee, and will be experimenting with similar roasting profiles going forward.

Aged Sumatra Grade 1 Lintong

2008-09-08T16:26:00.003-04:00

Life has intruded on blogging quite a bit lately. Not only has it prevented me from spending time on the computer typing things out, my coffee has suffered. I have been playing around with roasting profiles again, as I mentioned on the last post.

Very rarely do I produce coffee that is truly bad. Sure, I have had my mediocre roasts, mistakes, etc., but generally they are still better than the dreck I find at work, in a restaurant, etc. This time around, though, the results were truly bad.

I was playing around again with longer roast times and lower initial temperatures, like I did for the Nicaraguan coffee I last posted on. This time I pulled out some Aged Sumatra. I had roasted this one some months ago and really liked it. It reminded me of Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum, if you have ever had that fine concoction. This time around, I dragged the profile out to a full 20 minute roast:

I hesitate even posting this profile; you should just go ahead and burn it. The coffee it produced was truly vile. Leathery and gross, but at the same time baked and lifeless. Yuck.

I consider these two last roast profile experiments a failure. I have done some more experiments trying to stay close to the spirit of the original recommendation of drying things out more early in the roast, which have been more successful. Stay tuned.
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If anyone wants the profile I used a while back for a good version of this coffee, send me an e-mail and I can dig it out of my notebook.

Nicaragua Esteli - Nueva Esperanza

2008-09-02T14:47:00.004-04:00

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I was getting very good results with roasting profiles that were on the longer side, more than about 15 or 16 minutes. Now the conventional wisdom, such as it is, says that faster is better. Of course, "fast" can vary drastically depending on what sort of roaster you are using.

In addition, I have been reading a few things here and there about drying times. There are some interesting posts over in home-barista.com about the importance of thoroughly drying the coffee before entering into roasting temperatures. The specific recommendation was to keep the coffee temperature below 300 degrees Fahrenheit until it turns the yellow color of the initial Maillard reaction (caramelization).

Well, never one to back away from an experiment, I roasted two coffees last week with modified profiles. The first was a Nicaraguan coffee, an origin I haven't had very much coffee from. I immediately tried starting the profile with a longer soak at 300 degrees. The result was green coffee; this temperature on the Gene Cafe may be enough for drying things out, but isn't hot enough to produce any sort of lightening of the seed color in a reasonable amount of time. In fact, I had to eventually get the environment temperature up around 400 degrees before things really yellowed:

I am guessing that the glass cylinder of this roaster loses a lot of heat. The internal bean temperature is a lot lower than the environmental temperature. Interestingly, first crack on this coffee was very loud and very drawn out compared to what I am used to. I could hear cracks for a full 2 minutes or more. I wonder if this is due to the increased drying the coffee had.

With this roast taking almost 19 minutes for a City+ level, I had low expectations. The coffee was certainly quite good, but never having had this origin before, I can't really separate the roast effects from the coffee itself. This is quite a light coffee, with a very nutty and malty taste to it. The aftertaste is lingering, and again has that malt syrup aspect to it. There is also strong milk chocolate and a good waxy mouthfeel to it. A solid coffee, but nothing to really wow you. I am going to plan on roasting the same coffee using two profiles so I can really see if I can tell the difference next time.

Ethiopia Korate Wet Process

2008-08-27T11:43:00.005-04:00

I was so excited to get this coffee, for a couple of reasons. First of all, I love wet processed coffees from Ethiopia. They are a great change of pace from the rustic dry processed coffees. Coffees from the Yrgacheffe area, etc. have a prickly acidity about them, as well as piercing citrus notes and floral aromas that make them almost tea-like at times. Second, this is the exact same coffee as the dry processed version I spoke about last month. Being able to do a comparison where only the coffee's processing has changes is fascinating.

High off my roasting success of the superstar Panama Esmerelda coffee, I used the same exact profile:

Alas, sometimes such high expectations get dashed. I was somewhat disappointed with the way this came out. Despite the same profile and the exact same time between first crack and end of roast, I think I brought this coffee a few degrees too high. The silverskin/chaff on these beans really holds on, and it made looking at the roast color difficult. The aroma was promising, but I found the taste somewhat muted. There was peaches-in-syrup tastes, some Jolly Rancher candy notes, but the acidity I expected wasn't there to back it up. Some bittersweet roast character crept in to spoil the fun. I'll have to roast more of this to see if I can hit the sweet spot a bit better.

Panama Esmerelda Gesha, Lot 5

2008-08-26T10:06:00.005-04:00

THE. MOST. EXPENSIVE. COFFEE. IN. THE. WORLD.

That got your attention, didn't it? Sorry to let you down, but I am not willing to spend over a $100 on a pound of green coffee beans. Also, don't forget that you lose about 20% of the mass of the beans after roasting....

Panama's Esmerelda gesha coffee is the most acclaimed and pricey coffee on the planet. The last two years have seen the prices skyrocket to stratospheric heights. Is it worth it? That depends. Is it great coffee? Yes, indeed it is.

Luckily, the folks that produce the coffee separate lots out from different areas of their farm, and there are "bargains" to be found beside the auction lots that go for serious cash. Last year I had some of the non-auction Esmerelda coffee, and this year I picked up two of the less expensive lots. These are still not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, being two or three times as expensive as other high quality microlots of coffee.

This coffee cultivar, gesha, is originally of Ethiopian origin. Those familiar with this blog and those coffees, know that these beans can produce some very exotic fruit and flower tastes. Combine that with the terroir of Central America, and you have an unusual coffee. It has great acidity, and incredibly powerful aromas of wildflowers and tropical fruits.

This time around I started with the "cheaper" lot, a mere $10 or so a pound. This is a coffee you definitely want nowhere near second crack, so I decided to ramp up slowly to first crack. Here is the profile:

The result was a rare "wow" reaction after trying this 12 hours post-roast in a vacuum pot. From the moment you grind this stuff, it just fills the room with intense jasmine and exotic flower aromas. In the cup, it is juicy, juicy, juicy. Great acidity, tons of clean tropical fruit, and caramel. The finish is unique; there is a menthol/cooling sensation going on, perhaps citrus zest or something similar. Awesome stuff.

If there is any drawback at all, I feel this coffee fades faster than others. On subsequent days, the flowery notes fade and the caramel tones come more front and center. Still enjoyable, but not as legendary as the first day.

I was really happy with this roast; it will be a good starting point when I eventually get around to roasting the more expensive sister lot I have.

Some Miscellany

2008-08-21T09:12:00.002-04:00

Things have been sort of hectic around these parts lately, and it seems to have had a negative impact on my coffee roasting. A couple of notes:

I generally roast coffee to bring in to work once a week. It is a good opportunity to help reduce the stash, as well as bring a tiny amount of happiness to an otherwise brutally boring meeting. This week, I had originally planned to serve some Mexico Oaxaca Don Eduardo that I had laying about. You see, I admit to sometimes dumping off my older or less favorite coffees on my co-workers (sorry guys!). I figure they will be way better than anything else they are going to buy locally. Anyway, I grabbed a bag of what I thought was 8 oz of green coffee, my usual roasting amount, and dumped it in the roaster. A few minutes later when I looked in, I noticed that something was odd. It looked like there was more coffee than usual tumbling about. My confusion turned to horror as the beans started to expand (they swell to 2X or more their green volume while roasting), and completely clog the chamber. Luckily I was able to abort, smoke billowing, without burning my house down. You actually need to be very careful, since coffee is extremely combustible if you over-roast it. It turns out there was at least 12 ounces of coffee in the bag. Figures the one time I didn't weigh it out.....

That went in the trash and I was looking for another coffee when my son, all of two years old, opened a cabinet and insisted that I roast "this one", pointing to a five pound bag of Ethiopian coffee. I decided that it was as good a choice as any and roasted it up. This was the Ethiopia Korate from a couple of weeks ago, and it was fabulous then. Pure berries, simple and sweet. This time around I decided to use a different roast profile, one that had been very successful for the Kenya Gachatha. In the end, it wasn't particularly successful, being a bit thinner and less fruity than before. My co-workers felt it was bitter and overall not very good. It goes to show you how a different roast profile can have drastically different results.

Another Misty Valley in Ethiopia

2008-08-18T10:21:00.005-04:00

First of all, a picture of some recent stash additions. I was doing well on stash reduction, but things are out of control lately. Such is life, I guess. There was a shipping special going on, so I had to take advantage. After all, I was saving money, right?

It is no secret that Ethiopia's Idido Misty Valley is one of my all-time favorite coffees. The complexity and fruitiness of it, combined with the exacting preparation of the seeds really provides a clarity of flavor that I think is spectacular.

This year, there was another coffee playing off the "Misty Valley" moniker, namely a coffee from the same region exported by someone else. This one was deemed "Menno's Misty Valley" in honor of a certain Menno Simon who produced the coffee.

Apparently this was quite a small lot, and it disappeared from the Sweet Maria's offering list in a short time, too quickly for me to grab some. In an act of generosity, a fellow internet roaster sent me a pound to try out. My thanks go out to Eddie for his kindness. I have been playing around with slow roasts for a while, and I thought that would perhaps bring out the qualities of this coffee well, especially since I was aiming for quite a light roast. Here it is:

I need to collect my thoughts a bit, but some of these Gene Cafe roasts with what look like long roast times are turning out really well. In this case, the coffee was dynamite. This has a character that I haven't encountered before in Ethiopian dry processed coffees. There is an intense orange note, of all things. Berries are common enough flavors in these coffees, but never have I had such an intense orange note. The coffee is thick and liquory (is that a word?), with intense chocolate and orange notes. As espresso, even at such a light roast, the results are delicious. This is a heady brew, no doubt, and one that I am glad I had a chance to try.

Kenya AA Nyeri Gachatha

2008-08-12T11:52:00.002-04:00

I lurve me some Kenya coffee. It is sort of funny since in the beginning of my roasting career, I really disliked the stuff. Too many examples of teeth-peeling acidic samples I guess. This particular coffee is sort of unusual. It lacks the strong berry-like flavors that are common among high-end Kenyas, but boy oh boy is this stuff good. This was a small lot that arrived late in the season last year, and unfortunately is all gone now from Sweet Marias.

The roast:

I tried to give this coffee a lot of heat to build flavor since Kenyas are so dense. It took everything I could give it and laughed - my roaster never got to 482 degrees before first crack started and I had to lower it. The smells from the roaster were intense - just like candy.

In the cup, this is a somewhat simple coffee (for a Kenya). It has a deep malty sweetness, mild acidity, and a long sugary aftertaste. Seriously, this coffee is like drinking molten sugar. It is that sweet. As the cup cools a bit, there are some interesting notes that emerge, almost like an aged coffee. There is some spice, maybe tobacco, but it is a subtle thing.

All around, one of the most enjoyable coffees I have had lately.

Brazil FTO Poco Fundo x2

2008-08-11T09:45:00.003-04:00

The coffees from the Poco Fundo cooperative in Brazil have a unique distinction: they are the only Brazilian coffees I like. I have tried many, and they always disappoint me in terms of overall flavor, intensity, and interest. They serve as a nice backdrop in an espresso blend occasionally, but on their own I just don't like them.

Then there is Poco Fundo. This is a dry processed coffee with some great character. In the darker roasts I do with this bean, it is one of the best single origin espressos out there. Nutty, fruity (plums, raisins, etc.), chocolately - Poco Fundo has it all. As drip, it is also a very nice cup, but it really shines as espresso.

Anyway, I had a pound lying around and I thought it would be interesting to roast this coffee to a very light level, something I hadn't done before. Maybe I have been missing something all this time while roasting it past second crack?

Here we go with the light roast:

Brazilian beans are typically not that dense, so I tried to take it easy with this roast. I eagerly anticipated the first pot of coffee. And the result?.... Lousy. This was thin and boring. There was some nuttiness, but the characteristic fruitiness that I love so much in this bean wasn't there. It wasn't a terrible cup, but it wasn't very good either.

Just to prove that I wasn't going crazy, I took the other half pound of coffee and roasted it darker:

Here you'll see that the final temperature was up a but to make sure the coffee entered second crack, and the total roast time was longer. This time the coffee was phenomenal. Low acidity, intense nuttiness, chocolate, and plums. The mouthfeel is unique - creamy and crunchy if that makes any sense. The espressos were just perfect. With this coffee, I will be avoiding the light roasts like the plague.

Still Around

2008-08-07T20:18:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the lack of updates - work and vacation have gotten the better of me. I'll be back in business next week with a bunch of stuff including a tasting of two roasts of Brazil Poco Fundo, and many others.

Mexico Organic Chiapas

2008-07-22T12:40:00.002-04:00

I often call Mexican coffees my "palate resets". After drinking lots of over the top Kenyas, Ethiopias, dry processed fruit-bombs, etc. it is nice to drink some unassuming beverages that taste like "coffee"; nothing too complicated, just a cup you can enjoy with the morning paper and not spend time analyzing flavor components. If I had a cafe, something like this Chiapas would be my house coffee. It is complex enough to intrigue the hard-core coffee drinker, yet at the same time it is eminently approachable for the masses.

This roast behaved quite oddly. In retrospect I know that it was due to roasting on a day where we were having record heat and humidity. I think that the voltage at the outlet was lower than usual due to power company load, and things heated up in the roaster much slower than anticipated. Still, the coffee came out great.

On the first day, the aroma and taste were very nutty. I think hazelnut is the best descriptor. It is sweet, but with some interesting earthy tones. Several days later, it is a different coffee. If I was drinking this blind, I would almost think it is a dry processed Ethiopian coffee. The aroma is brown sugar and graham cracker, with some coconut lurking around. The taste is pure milk chocolate with a fruity background. The nuts have receded quite a bit.

Overall this is a really good coffee. I like the fact that it isn't too heavy, but it has a unique character true to the Chiapas region.

Uganda Bugisu AA

2008-07-21T13:40:00.004-04:00

OK, I am going to say a country name and you tell me what springs to mind. Ready?...... Uganda.

Come on, admit it. You are thinking Idi Amin, despotism, torture, and other unpleasant things. Well, believe it or not, Uganda also exports coffee. And an interesting beast it is, too. Other coffees from Africa are of the citric variety; very acidic, refreshing drinks. Kenya is the archetypal example of that style. This is the first time I have tried a coffee from Uganda, and I was intrigued to find out what it is all about. Word on the street was that this is a low-acid, funky coffee more in the vein of something from Indonesia.

I decided to roast this one to Full City, darker than I would normally start:

I slowed this one down to develop the body and more brooding notes.

The roasted bean fragrance was unexpected. There is a very fruity aspect to it, perhaps papaya of all things. In the cup, it is low-acid, rustic and earthy. At the same time there are subtle fruity notes buried in there which make it very interesting. The papaya hangs around, creating an interesting impression.

It will be interesting to try this one over the next few days to see how it develops, but so far I am enjoying it. It is deliciously different compared to what I have been drinking lately.

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Note: New addition posted to the Rogues Gallery

Ethiopia Korate Natural Sidamo

2008-07-16T11:30:00.003-04:00

I couldn't resist adding more Ethiopian coffee to the stash. I was doing well on stash reduction for a few months and had whittled things down to 40 pounds or so. My wife was very happy, and the cabinets were relieved of some extra weight. Lately, though, I seem to be acquiring more coffee...

Anyway, this is an interesting coffee. Very clean, both in preparation, and in the cup. I roasted this one with the intention of mimicking some really good roasts of another Ethiopian coffee, but messed up the initial temperature. Still, the coffee was great, and I have another few pounds to play with.

The profile:

I had intended to start at a lower temperature (300 degrees) for a bit, but I was working from a flawed memory. Such is life. The aroma is pure berries, sweet and clean. The flavor follows suit. This was quite a light roast, just out of first crack, and there wasn't much roast/chocolate character going on. It was all sweet fruit.

The interesting thing here is how clean the taste was. Most dry processed coffees have a bit of funk to them. Call it "rustic" if you will, it is that very faint hidey, baggy, leathery flavor that lurks in the background. Not so here. There is a purity in the cup that I haven't encountered before. I think "simple" actually applies here, although overall there are a lot of flavors. However, there is really nothing to interfere with the fruit. I'll be curious to play with this one in subsequent roasts.

Panama Bambito Estate

2008-07-10T15:52:00.003-04:00

Panama produces some great coffee, and some wickedly overpriced ones as well. The most famous coffee of all, Esmerelda Gesha, has gone for well over $100 a pound for the past few years. Yes it is very good, but not worth the price in my opinion.

Bambito Estate is one of those coffees I thought I was really going to like based on the description and the enthusiasm of the folks at Sweet Marias, but I really hate this stuff. Unfortunately I bought several pounds together with an order of other (excellent) Panama coffees last year, so I am stuck with it.

This one got a gentle roast, looking for a light Full City level:

And the taste in the cup? Well, lets see. The smell, I mean aroma, is fairly nondescript. Some flowers, spice, etc. The first thing that hits your mouth? Barbecue sauce. Yeah, you know - ketchupy, smoky, salty. This is followed by some unpleasant brothy notes, and eventually settles down into a sludgy aftertaste. Mmmm, I am really selling it now, aren't I?

I suppose I just may be mangling this coffee during roasting, or my skills are insufficient to bring out its true character, but I don't think so. Perhaps roasting it darker might help as well. In any case, I'll take a big ole' pass on Bambito next time around.

Guatemala Fraijanes - Finca Agua Tibia

2008-07-10T14:23:00.003-04:00

I don't know why, but Guatemalan coffee just makes me yawn. It is good enough, I suppose, but I find it unexciting. I find myself a bit bipolar when it comes to coffee. I like really wild coffees like various dry-processed kinds from Ethiopia and elsewhere. At the same time, I like real simple, clean coffees from Mexico and Costa Rica. The Guats have a strange herbal thing going on for me that just doesn't thrill me.

This coffee is good enough, but not one I would buy again. Translating the name into English via Babelfish, we get "lukewarm property water", which is amusing. We'll stick to Spanish where it sounds more exotic. I roasted this coffee hot and fast, looking to preserve acidity and accentuate the bright notes:

The coffee has a very strong aroma of cloves, and something close to rose hips. The body has that typical bourbon creaminess, and a nice amount of bittersweet chocolate in the finish. This is definitely a coffee that would be a crowd pleaser; tastes like most people think coffee should taste, with some potent flavors and a bit of an interesting aroma. For me, I find it forgettable.

Yemen Mokha Sharasi

2008-07-10T11:44:00.008-04:00

My wife makes me feel guilty whenever I buy or roast Yemeni coffee. After the USS Cole incident, it was clear (if it hadn't been before) that Yemen is a hotbed of terrorist activity. Should we support Yemeni coffee farmers? Are they all a bunch of terrorists camouflaged as farmers? Unlikely. I suppose if I refrained from eating or drinking foods that come from areas that hate America I would lose a lot of weight....

Anyway, I find Yemeni coffees a pain to roast. They are very uneven, and the cracks tend to be quiet and/or run together so I have a devil of a time getting the roast correct. This one got away from me a bit and was darker than I intended, but it was still quite good.

The profile:

I was looking for just a few snaps of seconnd crack, but things got rolling pretty good before I had a chance to hit the breaks. This coffee has some unusual character - very buttery and deep notes. Perhaps "brooding" is a good descriptor. I was expecting some more fruit lurking about, but perhaps if I roasted it a bit lighter it would be evident. As espresso it was really nice. Deep, deep flavors and that buttery richness that coats your mouth and just lasts and lasts. In milk, it cut right through - a very nice cappuccino. Delicious and different.

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As an aside, I have a bunch of tea stuff I need to post, as well as some notes on coffee brewing techniques. I haven't had much time lately, but hopefully over the next few weeks I can get caught up

Colombia Antioquia -Jardin Cerulean Warbler

2008-07-07T10:14:00.004-04:00

Tweet, tweet. Tweet, tweet. What's that sound? It is the sound of a really dumb name for a coffee. You can see the picture of the birdie to the left - the Cerulean Warbler. Apparently this coffee comes from an area where there is some sort of conservation project to help out this bird whose population is declining. That's nice, but how does it taste?

I wanted to roast this one very lightly:

Based on observing the roast, this is one dense little seed. Seventeen and a half minutes got me a City roast, perhaps a tad more. Despite the silly name, this is a really nice coffee. Sweet, balanced, and delicate - this is a good palate reset after a bunch of dry processed coffees I have been drinking lately. There is some peach in the aroma, and plenty of acidity as a backbone. Drinking it later in the week, I find some typical raisiny notes as well. This was dynamite in a vacuum pot also. I would get this one again.

The Rogues Gallery

2008-06-26T09:04:00.006-04:00

I find that my food and drink snobbishness has declined over the years. I don't turn up my nose at anything, more or less, and drink and eat what is available without getting all uppity. I hear lots of people say things along the lines of "I won't touch restaurant coffee now that I know what the good stuff tastes like", or similar, but I am not that way. As they say, you gotta do what you gotta do.

To that end, I have decided to keep a chronicle of some of the cups of coffee I have had from outside my own house. After all, it is important to keep comparing yourself to others if you want to improve. So, starting today, we have the Coffee Rogues Gallery (cue ominous music). I'll update this thread as I encounter new specimens.

McDonalds "Premium Roast", from store drive through in East Fishkill, New York, about 9AM

Aroma: none whatsoever
Taste: Brown water. Seriously. I am not sure if any coffee grounds stayed in contact with the water for more than a nanosecond. I can't even do a serious review because this tasted like nothing.
Other: This coffee was hotter than a small thermonuclear explosion. Alas, cooling it down provided no additional redeeming values.
Recommendation: Avoid. Licking stagnant water from a puddle in the middle of August would have more coffee flavor.

Decaf Coffee from Mind-Numbing meeting in work, 6/26/08, 8:30AM
Aroma: Burning tires
Taste: Matches the aroma. Brutally sour, with a paint-thinner aftertaste (no I haven't drunk paint thinner, but give me some artistic license, please)
Other: This was fresh - I can only imagine what it might have been like after it was sitting in the urn for a few more hours.
Recommendation: Might be useful for removal of stomach polyps, but not as an enjoyable beverage. Avoid.

touch restaurant coffee now that I know what the good stuff tastes like", or similar, but I am not that way. As they say, you gotta do what you gotta do.

To that end, I have decided to keep a chronicle of some of the cups of coffee I have had from outside my own house. After all, it is important to keep comparing yourself to others if you want to improve. So, starting today, we have the Coffee Rogues Gallery (cue ominous music). I'll update this thread as I encounter new specimens.

McDonalds "Premium Roast", from store drive through in East Fishkill, New York, about 9AM

Aroma: none whatsoever
Taste: Brown water. Seriously. I am not sure if any coffee grounds stayed in contact with the water for more than a nanosecond. I can't even do a serious review because this tasted like nothing.
Other: This coffee was hotter than a small thermonuclear explosion. Alas, cooling it down provided no additional redeeming values.
Recommendation: Avoid. Licking stagnant water from a puddle in the middle of August would have more coffee flavor.

"Coffee" at in-laws house in NJ, early AM consumption
Aroma: Rubber, stale hazelnut
Taste: Brown water
Other: I love my in-laws, but to call this coffee strains the definition. Imagine that you took a few granules of Dunkin' Doughnuts coffee and diluted it 100:1 in lukewarm water and you'll have a good idea of the taste. Add to that a brewer that hasn't been cleaned since the Carter administration and you have one foul brew.
Recommendation: Sometimes you get what you get; pour in enough milk and pray that enough caffeine comes through and smile

Stay tuned for more additions

Ethiopia Harar Horse, Lot 17406, Roast #2

2008-06-23T10:40:00.002-04:00

No horses were harmed during the making of this coffee.... Just kidding - it is just the mark of the importer.

This coffee really annoys me. I love dry processed Ethiopian coffee, and this lot got a lot of praise. However, I find it boring at best. I originally tried it last week, and found it flat. Interestingly, the aroma of the beans themselves was more interesting than the brewed coffee.

Thinking another roast profile might be in order, I used this one:

As expected, this quick ramp robbed the coffee of some body, but accentuated the fruity notes and acidity. Overall it is better than last time, but still uninspiring. The ground coffee aromas are intense - fermented mango, tamarind, some coconut. Very intense. What winds up in the cup, however, is quite light. It kind of reminds me of one of those frou-frou summer fruit soups you might come across at a fancy restaurant. The flavors are mild, and integrated with some syrupy malt notes. Not bad, but not worth purchasing more of this coffee. We'll see if it gets any better during the week, and perhaps some espresso extraction is in order also.

Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley

2008-06-22T15:06:00.004-04:00

In the last part of the Ethiopia No Holds Barred Cage Match, I told you that the winner would go up against a perennial favorite, Idido Misty Valley (IMV). Well, let me tell you, it was no contest whatsoever. The Sidamo took a brutal beating by IMV, leaving it bruised and bloody on the mat.

IMV is my favorite coffee, bar none. It has somewhat legendary status among coffee geeks. It comes from an area around Yrgacheffe that has a tradition of wet processed coffee, but the IMV is dry processed. It roasts like a dream - incredibly uniform for a coffee of this type. From the green seeds through the roast, through the cup, it is a powerhouse of fruity goodness. There is an interesting article here as well.

The 2006 crop I found to have strong notes of dried strawberries. The 2007 I am roasting now is blueberries all the way. At the same time, with the wild blueberry and over the top honeysuckle aromas, it is such a balanced cup. I smile whenever I drink it.

The roast profile was very similar to the Cage Match coffees, but I started at a lower temperature to make sure I didn't burn off any of the fruity goodness:

I extended the middle time by a minute since it had just barely reached the temperature set point by the time 10 minutes had passed. This is quite a light roast - just out of first crack and a little more. Even after 12 hours it is phenomenal. Intense floral aromas and berries, berries, berries. It is well integrated with some chocolate notes, and changes as the cup cools. It is a sweet, medium bodied cup. There is really nothing like it.

Just for chuckles, I roasted the last of the Harar from last time with a different profile to compare it to the disappointing performance of last week. I'll try it tomorrow and see what's what.

Roast Profiles, II

2008-06-20T11:35:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I wrote down some largely incomprehensible thoughts about roast profiles I have been using. Let's see if today I can make things a bit clearer.

There is another popular option for roast profiles, which more or less says "crank the heat as high as it can go (482 degrees) until first crack, and then lower it until the end of roast". This is not a profile to use until you are fairly familiar with the Gene Cafe, since you can easily make charcoal (or a fire) if you are not tuned in to the sounds and smells of the roast, and it can be tricky to get things to slow down such that there is enough time between first and second crack for sufficient flavor development. This fast ramp can also reduce the amount of perceived body in the coffee.

However, this can be an effective method for high-altitude/dense seeds. Using this method tends to preserve a lot of acidity in the coffee, which can be good or bad depending on the coffee itself and what you are looking to accomplish. You can further combine this with my observations from yesterday on starting temperature to come up with some sophisticated profiles that can really dial a coffee in.

Let's look at some examples, and I'll refer back to previous blog postings.

#1 High-altitude, bright, Central American coffee. Here I'll refer back to the Guatemala Yellow Bourbon posting. Here I was looking for a light roast, and to ensure that the acidity wasn't too overpowering. Therefore I started at a somewhat higher temperature (350 degrees), and crept up on first through some intermediate temperature ramping.

#2 Low-altitude, low-acidity coffee. An example might be an Indian coffee. Since this is lower grown, I try and keep the temperatures more moderate, and again use some intermediate temperatures in the ramp to slowly develop the flavors.

#3 High-Altitude, medium acidity coffee. An example might be a Yemeni coffee.
Here I was looking to add some sparkle to the coffee, since Yemen can be a bit brooding, so I used a fast ramp up to first crack and then settled things down. I would use similar profiles for a Kenya coffee, where you can be aggressive with the heat due to the extreme seed density.

So there you have it. Depending on what you are looking for out of the coffee, you can choose how fast you move it along to change the amount of acidity in the coffee, and trade that off against body, etc. There are a lot of variables to play around with, and I'll try to highlight my thinking as I roast, taste, and post about these coffees.

Roast Profiles, I

2008-06-19T11:54:00.005-04:00

I suppose that if you are a professional roaster or an apprentice to one, there is lots of wisdom and experience to impart. As I have said before, the taste of roasted coffee is very much a function of how you get to the final temperature of the beans. In principle you want to keep the coffee moving up in temperature steadily, but there is some artistry in how fast or slow during various times in the roasting process.

From an equipment perspective, the amateur roaster is often at a disadvantage for a couple of reasons. First, it is often impossible to know what the actual temperature of the beans is during a roast. This is one reason I miss using my iRoast 2; I had a jury-rigged thermocouple in there that I was able to keep a close eye on, plot out temperature versus time, etc. With the Gene Cafe there is really no way to do this. You can tell the air temperature, but of course that is not at all the same as what the beans are doing.

The other disadvantage is temperature ramp rate. With the Gene Cafe, you have in principle infinite control over temperature settings, but in the end the heater is either on or off, and the ramp is a function of the bean amount and density, etc.

Over the past year or two I have played around a lot with roast profiles. I have learned a lot (I think), and I still am mystified by other things. I thought I would sketch out some broad thoughts here as a jumping off point for some other experiments.

First, a word on pre-heating. There is a lot of thermal mass in the drum itself and the various components, and I am a firm believer in pre-heating the machine a bit before adding any coffee. You really want all the thermal energy going into the beans, not the machine, so you can get the roast moving and have consistent results. I typically run the roaster empty at 350 degrees or so while I am getting other things ready. I am not too particular about time, but even a few minutes makes a difference. This pre-heating can also affect how loud first crack can be, but that is a story for another day.

At the beginning of my journey with the Gene Cafe, I generally started with a simple profile of 360 degrees for 5 minutes and then 460 degrees until the end of the roast. I got this profile off the internet somewhere, and I stuck with this for quite a while. I made some good coffee that way. At some point during some discussion via the Sweet Marias Home Roasting List (Archives here), there were folks using a slightly different profile; one that starts with a lower temperature to start (about 300 degrees), then an intermediate temperature (somewhere between 400 and 450 degrees), and then to the final temperature.

I tested this out by roasting a Costa Rica La Minita coffee in two different batches to compare. My wife drank both coffees over a period of several days and noted the differences. The first batch was roasted as:

360 degrees/5 minutes, 460 degrees to end

and the second as:

300 degrees/5 minutes, 445 degrees/5 minutes, 460 degrees to end

Both were roasted to City+, and not surprisingly the second roast took 2 minutes longer to complete. My wife and I decided that the second roast was considerably better than the first. It was bright, sweet and alive compared to the duller tasting first batch. An interesting result.

From there I started using this type of profile a lot, varying mostly the middle temperature depending on what type of bean I was roasting (higher for denser beans, etc). In retrospect, however, I think the starting temperature may be more important....

In watching lots of roasts, I noticed that the first five minutes at 300 degrees basically produced no color change in the coffee whatsoever. It was just drying out the beans without any sort of caramelization happening. I am not saying this is bad necessarily, but it is a data point. Furthermore, as I told you the Gene's heater is either on or off, so is sort of "does what it wants" from a ramp rate perspective. Despite tweaking the intermediate temperatures around, I don't think the actual temperatures of the beans were very different at all.

This is getting confusing, even to me. Let me cut to the chase for today, and tomorrow I'll post some other thoughts on another profile entirely.

For coffees that are very dense and have a lot of natural acidic notes (Kenya, Yrgacheffe, some Centrals), it is better to start at a higher initial temperature, greater than 300 degrees for the first part of the roast. If you don't, you risk grassy and sour notes.

On the flip side, where you are trying to preserve delicate, fruity, or acidic notes, if you start too high, it tends to dull those flavors out. I think this is what happened to the Ethiopia roasts I just talked about. They started at 350 degrees and just seemed lifeless to me, especially the Harar. I think they would have done better started at 300 degrees and then ramped quickly to first crack. I intend on trying this with one of them next week.

More tomorrow, and I'll try to summarize all this into something people can make meaningful use of.

Sidamo v. Harar - No Holds Barred Cage Match, II

2008-06-17T14:25:00.005-04:00

Yesterday, Ethiopia Sidamo attacked first, perhaps leaving Harar slumped against the turnbuckle. What can happen next in this epic battle?

In the other corner we have the rather interestingly named Ethiopia Harar Horse DP -Lot 17406. What about lot 17405? We'll never know....

This coffee was roasted right after the Sidamo, with the same profile. Here are the details:

Smelling the beans, you can easily tell the difference between Harar and Sidamo. The Harar smells like over the top tropical fruits - smashed up mangoes, pineapple, etc. Very heady, almost fermented. The Sidamo is more of a stone fruit melange: apricot, peach, etc.

In the cup, I also found the Harar more muted than I might have expected. I noted something similar with the Sidamo. I think it might have something to do with the initial temperature being too high. I am going to combine some of these trends and observations on roasting profiles into a different post when I have some extra time.

The fruity notes of the dry grounds are there, but are tempered with chocolaty flavors. There is some good acidity as well, but it is not the wild cup I imagined. Certainly it is tasty enough, but at this roast treatment I am not running out to stock up.

If I had to choose a winner, it would be the Sidamo, hands down. The complexity of the cup, how the fruit integrates with the more rustic and funky notes, and the pure intensity make it a winner for me. I wouldn't pass up either, but Sidamo gets the edge this time.

Next round: our current winner goes up against one of the icons of home roasting: Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley. Stay tuned....

Sidamo v. Harar - No Holds Barred Cage Match, I

2008-06-16T11:54:00.007-04:00

When it comes to coffee, for me, Ethiopia is where it is at. The incredible variety, origin character, and history make these coffees truly special. I have in my possession a lot of Ethiopian beans, so I thought it would be fun to compare two especially lauded ones.

Both these coffees are dry processed, and hail from Harrar and Sidamo, two of the most famous areas of Ethiopian coffee production. Dry processed coffees leave some of the fruity mucilage layer of the coffee cherry in contact with the seed for some time during processing, leading to fruity flavors in the cup. Both these coffees are for the adventurous, since they can push the envelope of what many people interpret as "traditional coffee flavor"

In today's corner is Ethiopia Sidamo Dry Processed Biloya. This coffee has the distinction of being one of the highest rated coffees at Ken David's coffeereview.com. What weight do I place behind this recommendation? None whatsoever. Still, it is a data point. If you search around the web, you will find lots of accolades about this coffee.

I first roasted this coffee back in August of 2007. My tasting notes were effusive to say the least:

"Very impressive, complex and changeable coffee. Dry grounds are overwhelmingly estery, spicy, fruity, chocolaty. Aroma in cup is intense cinnamon. First third of cup is dry spice, fleeting leather. 2nd third is cinnamon-laced apricot; last third is a deep wininess that reminds me of a Kenya coffee. Very very nice"

Wow, I must have had a lot of free time back then to write this stuff.

Anyway, I roasted a new batch on Friday with the following profile:

And the cup today? Yeah, it's good. I am not sure I have the enthusiasm I previously had for it, though. I can imagine a few reasons why. First, the coffee is a bit older now. Second, I have tried a lot more coffees since I first tried this stuff, and I am less easily impressed, and third, the roast profile was a tad different this time.

Don't get me wrong - this is a tasty cup. "Cinnamon-drenched apricot" is a good description. In a way, this coffee reminds me more of a Yemen than a Ethiopian coffee. The Harrar I'll talk about tomorrow is quite a bit different beast. As for which is better, you'll have to wait and see.

India Mallali Estate "Tree-Dried Natural"

2008-06-12T10:48:00.002-04:00

Coffee from India. I have had a few interesting examples over the years, but of course nothing beats the puerile pleasure of saying "Mysore Nuggets Extra Bold". Come on - say it a few times - you know you are laughing.

Anyway, today is not about that coffee, but about an unusual coffee from India that is actually dried on the tree. The coffee cherries are left to ripen on the tree and essentially turn into little raisins. If this works well, you should get some interesting character to the coffee. If it doesn't, well....

As an aside, dry-processed coffees like this one are always going to be more variable since wet processed coffees allow you to sort out unripe cherry more easily (they float), instead of having to do things by hand. I can't imagine how much work went into this coffee, and for something which ultimately sold for a few dollars a pound.

I have roasted this coffee a few times, so the notes are a compilation over those sessions. This is a somewhat low-altitude coffee, so it is easy for the roast to get away from you if you heat it up too fast. Slow and gentle wins the race. The coffee was roasted to a Full City level.

This coffee has some very nice dry-roasted peanut notes, low acidity, but coupled with an interesting fruitiness. In the aroma, I swear I smell ripe melon. Interesting! I am not sure I have tasted anything quite like it. It is sort or a cross between something like a low-acid Sumatra coffee mixed with the fruitiness of an Ethiopian. The combination is somewhat unexpected, but very pleasant nonetheless.

Kenya Thika - Gethumbwini Peaberry

2008-06-09T10:05:00.003-04:00

This is the last of my beans from the 2007 main crop. I thought this coffee was one of the best of 2007. My notes from last October read, "Intense stuff. In-your-face sweet grape and blackberry aroma. Powerful, crisp, sweet, and acidy. Medium body. A powerhouse of a coffee that keeps getting better and better every day I drink it". Hardly faint praise.

Since the new crop had come in, I wanted to finish off all of the last stuff I had laying around, so I roasted it up the other day. The profile was slightly different than the first time:

This was a faster roast then back in October, and I think the body suffered a bit. However, the intense fruit character that I love is still there. Think ripe cherries, blackberries, grapes overlaid with fresh sage and other herbs. It is definitely a unique taste profile for coffee, and quite unexpected. Personally I love the stuff, but I could see people who favor a more "classic" coffee taste might be put off.

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Addendum 6/11/08

As is often the case, this coffee gets better with more rest. Besides the great fruitiness, I get a strong sense of Ricola candies in the aroma. Interesting! The herbal qualities of this coffee are something I hadn't fully appreciated before with previous roasts.

Yemen Mokha Mattari Redux

2008-06-06T12:32:00.000-04:00

Bear with me here - I am highly caffeinated at the moment. I consumed a lot of espresso this morning to write this piece. Such are the sacrifices we make....

I described last month a roast of Yemen Mokha Mattari from Sweet Marias. Despite some mishaps during roasting, it turned out particularly well as brewed coffee. Last Friday I decided to roast up some more of these beans, but take them darker for use as espresso. The claim is that Yemen's like a lot of rest to really come together flavor-wise, so this is a good test. I also added the picture above to show the "before and after" of the coffee.

Here is the profile:

As you can see, another minute and a half of roast compared to the previous gets you into second crack. This is what I was looking for in this roast. The espresso extraction process can really exacerbate acidic flavors, and light roasts in general don't do well. I roasted this one dark (for me) to get better balance.

As an interesting aside, you can take a look at the variation in color post-roast (common in dry-processed beans) in this picture:

If you compare this to something like the picture in the blog's title (which is a Guatemalan coffee), you should see the differerce.

So, what about the espresso? I tried this coffee three ways (shots pulled from my Rancilio Silvia machine):

Double espresso
Cappucino (double shot in ~6oz of milk)
Double ristretto

Now you are starting to understand the caffeine jag I am on....

Anyway, this stuff was darn good. The espresso was very intensely woody, with a packed house of "spice bazaar" tastes. Chewy and very long lasting. Great stuff, but a bit on the rough side. In milk, it really shined. The spice notes were still there, and solid chocolate notes cut well through the milk. The ristretto was probably the best of the bunch. A lot of the roughness was gone, and it was smooth, sweet, spicy, and exotic. I didn't get any real fruitiness in this one; it was more in the woody camp. Perhaps another roast treatment would pull out more fruit.

Kenya AA Giakanja Coop Coffee Mill

2008-06-04T11:27:00.002-04:00

It look me some time to get to like Kenya coffees. The altitude and climate these coffees are grown at can produce some ferocious acidity in coffee. Some people like this, and some people don't. Originally, I didn't.

The issue is the difference between acidity and sourness. When the term "acidity" is used when referring to coffee, it is the slight puckering sensation and crispness to the cup that actually makes the coffee very refreshing and drinkable. However, when not done correctly (or under-roasted), this can turn into a grassy, sour flavor that can make your whole body shudder. Back in the day I roasted a lot of coffee that tasted like that and it really turned me off.

Now that I am pretty devoted to light roasted coffee. I find that when done correctly, the brightness of Kenya coffees comes with a sweetness and complexity that you will find in few other places. Now I can't get enough of the stuff.

This particular coffee was roasted quite lightly the first time around, back in March of this year:

My notes were as follows:
3/23/08: "Intense stuff. Very powerful flowery aroma - roses! Interesting bitterness to go with it. Perhaps could have ended the roast a tad sooner"

3/24/08: "This aroma is so weird - I have never smelled anything like it in a coffee. In your face rose bush aroma. Unique, but I don't care for it"

I tell you, I have had weird fruity aromas, intense florals, nuts, you name it. But this rose aroma was so strong it turned my stomach.

With a half pound left, I decided to pawn this coffee off on my co-workers. I decided to roast it much darker to see if I could drive off the weird aroma. The profile this time is as follows (yellow marks the differences from the previous):

This time the coffee was roasted into second crack. With this treatment, the odd rose aroma was gone, and I was left with a very nice, pungent, and rustic cup. Not a coffee I would rush to buy again, but certainly very drinkable. It never ceases to amaze me how the same coffee roasted different ways can be so different in the cup.

Roasting Apparatus

2008-06-03T20:22:00.004-04:00

I just realized that I haven't mentioned what I am roasting with. All these roast profiles aren't that useful unless you have some idea what I am doing.

Anyhoo, I originally started out roasting using an iRoast2. This is a decent starter machine, but I had some quality issues with it (the power base kept dying), and the amount of beans you can roast at one time is rather limited. Still, the coffee was decent, and had the typical air-roaster quality of "brightness" in the cup.

At this point, a hoard of people are going to come out of the woodwork (or maybe not, since not too many people read these entries...) and tell me that you can produce great roasted coffee with a wok, a roasting pan, a heat gun and a dog bowl, a popcorn popper, a blowtorch, or perhaps a small thermonuclear explosion. In a sense they are correct, and you can read for hours and hours on the web about these things.

However, roasting coffee is more than "turning beans brown". The profiles of time and temperature make a huge difference to the final product. Even two roasts with exactly the same final roast time, with different ways of getting there can be completely different. It is useful to have some control over time and temperature (and ramp rate if you can get it). This can be done manually with some effort, but there are some machines out there that make it much simpler. I am a gadget guy, so I went the route of buying a GeneCafe.

I won't review the machine here; you can read about it in the link above, or search around on Coffee Geek or other web sites. Suffice to say that you have very good control over the key variables.

My typical batch size is 8oz. The way I drink coffee at home, that gets me through about a week. For espresso, I'll often drop it down to 6oz or so, since I drink less espresso than drip coffee. I also like to preheat the machine a bit before adding the beans. There is a lot of glass and metal that should get hot first, such that the thermal energy goes into the coffee beans instead of heating up the machine. Pre-heating can also have a pronounced effect on the ability to hear first crack, which I can talk about another time.

For cooling, I typically use the "Emergency stop" procedure which cools the coffee in the drum down to about 212 degrees. Then I move the coffee to a sheet pan on my granite countertop, which quickly cools things to room temperature. I then let the machine complete the rest of its cooling cycle down to 140 degrees, which hopefully will help out the lifetime of the roaster.

There are other options out there as well, ranging from the now very popular Behmor roaster, the Hottop, and others. However, my GeneCafe is going strong, and makes great coffee.

As for brewing the coffee, I have an article I need to parse through before posting here, but there is a lot to say on that topic as well.

In Defense of Light Roasting

2008-06-03T13:00:00.006-04:00

How many times have you heard something like "I love French Roast coffee". Or, "I like coffee that 'bites back' ". Well, you might as well say "I love some tasteless charcoal drowned in milk and sugar". Sadly, what passes for coffee in many establishments is horribly over-roasted and well past its prime. Also, there seems to be some macho thing going on, with the strongest and darkest possible coffee correlating to testosterone levels or something similar.

As an aside, in a Starbucks last week (I was there for a Green Tea Frappucino - yum - not coffee), I saw a sign advertising their new "Pike Place Blend". They proudly wrote on the blackboard, "Roasted in our York, PA roasting facility on April 10". April 10, my friend. That coffee is more than a month old and is more than likely truly putrid. (Actually, to put my money where my mouth is, I will plan on picking up a cup of Pike Place blend and do a review here in the near future. Should be interesting....)

Anyway, back to my point about dark roasting. Coffee, much like wine, has thousands of aroma/flavor compounds, and a very unique sense of terroir - the essence of the area the coffee is grown in; soil, weather, preparation, etc. However, it takes a lot of skill to bring out those notes without overwhelming them with roast character. For commercial roasters, this is exactly why very dark roasted coffee is the norm. It is easy to gain consistency of product when all you are tasting is carbon. Sure, a venti half-caf vanilla macchiato with soy milk tastes the same from Timbuktu to Tijuana, but it sure doesn't taste anything like good coffee.

On the flip side, very lightly roasted coffee, if not roasted carefully can be as sour as lemons and as nasty as chewing on lawn clippings. Think truck-stop coffee or some of the stuff that is served in work cafeterias. The roaster has to carefully allow the coffee to develop during the roasting process without imparting too much energy such that things go either too quickly or too dark, both of which are bad.

In other words, light roasting coffee takes skill, but you are rewarded with much more complexity in the cup. You can more easily appreciate the tropical fruit notes in an Ethiopian dry-processed coffee, for example, or the soaring acidity of a Kenya. Roast them dark and a lot of those delicate notes are gone, replaced by roast flavors. You'll notice that a lot of the stuff I roast is roasted without ever approaching second crack. It can be a pain to get it right, but when you nail the roast, you truly get something special that links you fundamentally to the area where the coffee was grown.

There are a few commercial roasters out there who get it right. One of the first I tried before getting into homeroasting was the excellent coffee from Din Johnson at Ristretto Roasters. There are others out there as well which can be very good (Intelligentsia, Stumptown, Paradise, etc.), but of course roasting your own provides a different level of satisfaction.

Oh, and one more thing. Roasting for espresso is a different proposition. I think most places still way over-roast their blends for espresso, but in general you need to go a bit darker for use in espresso due to the way the extraction process can blow certain flavor characteristics out of proportion.

So there you have it. Try expanding your horizons and enjoy some lightly roasted coffee. Do me a favor and leave out the milk and sugar as well.

Guatemala Antigua Finca Retana Yellow Bourbon (and an experiment)

2008-06-02T10:51:00.028-04:00

There is much to say about this coffee, and the roast. First of all, for all you alcoholics out there, "bourbon" is the particular coffee cultivar that is grown on this estate. It traces back to the island of Reunion (also known as Bourbon at various parts of its history), and is pronounced "bore-BONE". For an interesting discussion of the geography and history of this place, you can check out this Wikipedia article. See? A history lesson together with your coffee.

Getting progressively more interesting, there is the color of the coffee cherry. Most of the coffee grown around the world has red fruit, such as:
You won't be surprised that Yellow Bourbon coffee has..... you guessed it - yellow fruit!

Anyway, on to the roasting. I admit that I am not normally a huge fan of the bourbon variety of coffee (reasons for that another time), but I was intrigued by this particular lot and the usual flowery descriptions of ripe, juicy fruit, peaches, etc.

I roasted half of this lot back on April 4, and the rest of it last Friday. Here is Friday's roast profile:

Comparing this roast to the one I did in April, you will see that this one had a higher initial temperature - 350 degrees versus 300 degrees:

First roast was shorter, both first crack and final roast time were faster. In general with these profiles, I try to "sneak up" on first crack when I am targeting a light roast, such that there is ample time for flavor development.

Let's compare my tasting notes from the two roasts:

4/4/08: "Sweet white grape juice & fruit in aroma. Taste is classic bourbon varietal. Acidy but not sour."

6/2/08: "GREAT. Better than last roast, despite being a shorter roast. Fruity notes are more muted, but sweetness and acidity are merged beautifully. Very juicy coffee"

This coffee is for people who like bright and sweet brews. Intense stuff that of course you will drink black (is there another way?).

This experiment also highlights how important the temperature is during the first part of the roast. Early in my roasting career, I had fairly low temperatures there just to get moisture out of the bean. Now I know that if you want to avoid grassy notes and overpowering acidity, it is better to have the temperature a bit higher. Depending on what I am trying to get out of the coffee, I will play around with this.

Oh, one other note about this coffee. It roasts up just beautifully. The bourbon stock, along with the serious altitude this coffee is grown at, makes for some incredibly dense seeds. The prep is beautiful as well. Take a look at how even the roast is:

(Click to Enlarge)

For an upcoming post, I took some pictures of some Yemen coffee, and you'll see the difference in roast evenness.

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Addendum 6/4/08
I brought this coffee into work today, and was even happier with it. I got the strong white grape juice aromas this time, and boy was this stuff smooth. Great coffee, and sure would be a crowd pleaser.

Mexico Organic Dry-Processed Nayarit Rustico

2008-05-31T11:19:00.005-04:00

This coffee's appellation is a mouthful, isn't it? It is an unusual beast - a dry processed coffee from Mexico. This is something I haven't tried. By the way - I love Mexican coffees. The simple, straightforward tastes of something from Oaxaca or Chiapas are often the antidote to the crazy flavors I tend to favor from Ethiopia and elsewhere. In this case, however, the coffee is a bit crazy itself. Dry-processed coffees are processed sort of like making raisins - the whole coffee cherry is dried in the sun with the fruit and skin intact. After that, the outer layers are milled off the dry seeds. This processing can make for some interesting fruity flavors in coffee.

I decided to roast this coffee to Full City, or just a few snaps into second crack. Since it is a low-altitude coffee, I kept the temperatures moderate. The coffee was very uneven looking at the end, which isn't surprising. This morning I had a vacuum brew of it and was very pleased. Very often when these fruity coffees are roasted on the darker side, a lot of the fruit character is muted and replaced by roast notes. Not here. There was deep, rustic chocolate as a base (reminded me of....surprise... Mexican chocolate with almonds), and there was still a lot of nice tropical fruits lingering. Perhaps right on the edge of a ferment defect, but still pleasurable. This is a rich, complex, delicious coffee. Yum.

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Addendum 6/1/08

I tried this as espresso this morning. Awesome stuff. The fruit and chocolate really work well together, and there was just enough acidity to balance things out. Keep this one in mind for future espresso related endeavors.

The Stash

2008-05-30T14:34:00.005-04:00

I seem to have accumulated a lot of coffee over the past few years. Interestingly, I am more or less the only coffee drinker in the house. My wife will drink half a cup (literally) in the morning sometimes, and she likes her cappucinos, but for the most part it is just me.

So, why on earth do I have more than 40 pounds of green coffee in my house? My shelves are groaning under their weight. I can justify it in a number of ways:

1. I am saving on shipping by buying in bulk
2. I like variety
3. I am a mental case.

More than likely, #3 is the driving force, but so be it. From what I can tell from perusing other coffee sites, other people have it worse. Actually, over time, I have whittled the stash down quite a bit.

It is interesting to look at what origins make up this stash. A pie chart tells the tale, as above. I found it a bit surprising, though, since I am such a fan of African coffees. The majority is actually from Central and South America. Go figure.

Being the analytical type, I also keep a spreadsheet of what I have around, and what I think of it. Google Docs is a bit flaky, but I converted the current version to html here. Take a look. You'll have to play around a bit and convert my ratings to your sensibilities, but perhaps someone can get something useful out of it.

Kona Kowali Estate

2008-05-28T14:20:00.004-04:00

Believe it or not, I have never roasted a Kona coffee. Sure, I have had it here and there at coffee establishments, both in its blended form (people capitalizing on the Kona name while using ridiculously small percentages of the actual beans), as well as single-origin brews from reputable roasters. My reaction has always been, more or less "I don't get it". This stuff is seriously expensive, and my reaction to the cup is always humdrum.

I couldn't resist trying to roast some myself, though, so I sprung the $17 or so for a pound of greens. This is almost 3X the typical price I would pay for high quality coffee from other origins. The beans themselves are gorgeous - jade green and of massive size. Seriously, these are some really big beans. I suppose this has something to do with the altitude they are grown at.

The roast profile was intended to be gentle with these beans, given both their density and their price. The last thing I wanted was to carbonize these pricey beans. I targeted a City+ roast based on some other reviews of this coffee, though I understand Kona often gets a darker roast than this.

And the result? I was surprised by how much acidity was in the cup. It was somewhat unexpected, but not unpleasant. The coffee has an interesting chocolate-malt character, and is extremely intense, even at this relatively light roast. Has a good.....er.... coffee taste. Is it worth the price? Nope. It is a nice cup, but it doesn't have any unexpected character or other unusual traits that might justify the price. Compare this to something like the Gesha coffees of Panama, which are truly unique (and even then don't justify their price, IMO), and I just don't get it. I certainly enjoyed the cup, but I have little desire to buy more. Based on drinking it throughout the week, I think it would do better at a Full City roast, so I will try that at some point.

Why?

2008-05-22T11:14:00.003-04:00

Perhaps it is worth a minute to discuss why I am even writing these things down. There is a practical side and an emotional side. As a practical matter, I have many notebooks full of roasting notes. It is incredibly cumbersome to go back and look for something, so I started looking for an electronic method to accomplish this. Furthermore, the coffee home roasting community may, in some small part, benefit from these notes, or at the least be amused. Since I am a bit of a tea aficionado as well, my intent is to mix some tea related notes in here as well. Finally, depending on my mood, I may have other miscellaneous musings to put down. That is the practical part. I must admit that this may be secondary to the emotional part. You see, I have an incredibly stressful life. From a job perspective, things are absolutely insane. At home, life is very busy with small children around. Combine that with a bit of a "life crisis" (note no "mid-" prefix), and I sat down to think about what I need to do. I am one of those people who express themselves best through the written word. I decided that I need to focus on a few things that I actually like doing such that I find some balance in my existence. Writing stuff down is one of those pleasurable things. Why not combine that with my main hobbies? Hence this blog. Honestly, I have no idea whether this will even continue very long. It may fall prey to lack of time, or even interest. For now, though, I'll forge ahead and see where this leads.

Yemen Mokha Mattari

2008-05-21T13:43:00.000-04:00

Recently Tom of Sweet Marias went off to Yemen to scope out some new sources of coffee. You can read all about it at his "coffee Hajj" through the website. The claim is that he found three unique Yemen coffees that were supposed to turn your pre-conceived notions of Yemeni brew on their head.

According to Tom, the Mattari is the best cup for brewed coffee, with the others better as espresso. I only had a pound of this coffee, so I decided to break it into thirds to try out a few different roasts. In hindsight, I wouldn't do this again, but would rather have more coffee roasted.

This coffee got my latest and greatest profile I have been using, but I had a bit of a setback during the roast. The room where I roast is quite dark, and it is hard to tell the actual roast color as things are progressing. Therefore I use a little maglite to peer into the drum. Unfortunately the bulb died right at the end and I was flying blind. My 2 year old was around as well, so I couldn't leave him with the roaster running, so I decided to go by smell alone.

Interestingly, this coffee turned out fantastic. I don't think I have ever had anything just like it. There was earthy milk chocoloate, but no dirt or other funky notes that you can sometimes get from this origin. It was crystal clean. I can best describe it as chocolate-covered grapefruit. It was complex, yet light, and dare I say....haunting. A really amazing coffee that I am interested to try as an espresso roast at a later time.

Tanzania Songea Flatbean

2008-05-21T11:25:00.000-04:00

I lurve me some Tanzania coffees. The funny thing is that what most people associate with Tanzania- the peaberry, is generally some mediocre coffee. In fact, I think I read somewhere that Tanzanian coffee trees are no more likely to create peaberries than other areas, but this is more or less a marketing gimmick. Go figure

This particular lot is from Tom at Sweet Marias, and is just delicious. There is something about these coffees that strikes a great balance between some of the East African gaminess and the more balanced coffees from elsewhere in the world.

This coffee wound up in my stash somewhat by accident. I had actually ordered another Tanzanian coffee, the Ngorongoro convent from Sweet Marias, but they sent me this one accidentally. Good luck indeed, since this is tasty stuff. It has great dutch cocoa flavors with a bit of orange rind. This is medium bodies coffee that you can drink all day and be happy. This roast was my standard affair from a few months ago, and provides a very nice City+ roast level to preserve the terroir of Tanzania.

Ethiopia Dry Process Special Selection

2008-05-20T14:35:00.001-04:00

This is the second time I have roasted this coffee. This is a naturally fruity coffee with some nice chocolate notes. This time around I wanted to see if I could keep this real sparkly and bright. I tried a lower initial temperature to dry things out a bit without generating any caramelization, and then cranked the heat to max until first crack, hoping to preserve acidity. After that I lowered to my usual temperature until the end.

This came out more or less as I intended. Very bright with pungent tropical fruit aromas. Sticking your nose in the jar was like getting blasted with tamarind. The body was a bit on the thin side, which isn't surprising. In the end, I preferred the original roast (360 degrees for 5 minutes followed by 460 degrees to the end), which actually was the same total roast time, but developed more body and chocolate.

Ethiopia Yrgacheffe Kochere District

2008-05-20T13:58:00.001-04:00

Funny, but back in the day I couldn't abide bright coffees like this one, and many Kenyas. The concept of acidity in coffee can be a tough one to appreciate, since if not done carefully it can come across as sourness. If you have ever had a really bad, sour, brutish truck stop coffee you'll know what I mean. Pulling off a City roast that is bright but retains sweetness is one of the hardest things to learn how to do. Of course, once you pull it off you have to convince yourself that you like that style. I happen to like it very much, but not everyone will like coffee that tastes a bit like lemonade, as this one does.

My intent with the profile was to "sneak up" on first and give time for flavors to develop, as well as to ensure that the roast didn't get away from me after first crack. If you apply too much heat, things can go very quickly and you will either have more roast than you targeted for, or you have to end the roast quickly without enough flavor development. This one turned out pretty well.

I actually roasted this as part of an espresso blending experiment, but I set aside a small amount for brewed coffee this morning. This was a City roast, and was very intense. The floral aromas were very strong (hibiscus flowers?), and the taste was reminiscent of lemonade. As the cup cooled, there were milk chocolate notes in the background. Very nice, and more intense than the last time I roasted this.

Sulawesi Grade One Toraja

2008-05-19T16:03:00.000-04:00

I have to confess that I generally dislike Indonesian coffees, especially from Sulawesi. Most of them taste like moss and dirt to me, and the harsh roast treatment one needs to burn off some of the funk goes against my preference for lightly roasted coffee. Anyway. this is a coffee from last year that got thrown free into an order I had placed. In the past with other Indonesians (Sumatra, etc.), I have roasted them to preserve some acidity and sparkle, since these are naturally low-acid, brooding coffees. This time around I decided to really draw out the roast to emphasize the funky notes; it went a full 20 minutes before I ended it, which is very unusual. I haven't tried it yet, so Wednesday we'll have to see if it is a thick, syrupy, interesting Sulawesi, or a failed attempt to roast a coffee I am ambivalent about. Either way, it should be preferable to Dunkin Doughnuts.

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Addendum 5/21/08

Well, this one didn't turn out too well. It tasted baked and lifeless to me. This batch was actually roasted in a different room than usual and I had some circuit problems. The temperatures weren't what they should have been, and things really dragged along in the roast. Subsequent batches roasted in my usual room (on the tile floor in my morning room) have been back to usual. Time to call an electrician, I suppose.