I want some coffee!

Probably because the coffees from Chiapas are a new discovery for us, we were both happy to rotate back to it when the Ethiopian Guji was finished. Very surprising that I didn't take the usual one or two days to adjust to the change in beans. This was like having your favorite relative suddenly show up for a brief visit after a long absence. "Great to see you again Uncle Chiapas!" While we enjoy the remaining Chiapas , I was busy yesterday roasting coffee from not-too-far-away Veracruz ... the abutting state to the West of Chiapas which then extends North along the Gulf of Mexico. What we have from Veracruz is from a farm ( finca ) named la Laja or properly Finca la Laja , part of the holdings of the Sampieri family. I've done this one before and had a profile to follow, but for whatever reason it all got away from me toward the end of the roast and it went longer than planned. So we'll see how this works out. If the Chiaspas is any indication, there needs...

Over a week ago I roasted some Organic beans from Mexico's most southern state, Chiapas. Chiapas is nestled against Guatemala which sources some of the best coffee I've had in the recent past. So Chiapas is located in enviable territory to grow some really nice coffee... Chiapas, Mexico (Google Maps) I recently bought some greens from Home Roast Coffee in Wisconson. Unfortunately they onlky deal in small lots (5 lbs max) so I probably won't buy more. But the 4 batches I roasted were really good (4 batches of 550 gm each yielded about 4 lbs of roasted coffee). High Grown, HG: Coffee grown at high Altitudes produce a dense more vibrant flavor profile than those grown at lower Altitudes. Higher altitudes provide an Arabica Coffee friendly environment, the climate tends to be cooler with less direct sunshine and plenty of moisture. This causes the coffee fruit to mature slowly allowing more time to develop depth and sweetness, as well as many of the desirable characteristics...

No update yet from the Code Warrior. He had said either Friday or Saturday for the next version so it's looking like Saturday. And that's fine. The more bugs he kills before we see it the better the testers will like it. In the meantime, the Admiral and I are enjoying more of the Costa Rica don Oscar Limones . It's a batch I roasted on 29 Aug. The delay in trying it was as much intentional as happenstance. Last time out this coffee took a week or more for the really nice flavors to appear. That seems to be the case with this batch as well- 2 weeks later and we're really enjoying it. As part of the software testing I was doing I roasted some coffee from Mexico from the Chiapas region. That's sitting in the fridge waiting for its place on the countertop. It's from a new supplier (Home Roast Coffee in Wisconsin) that will probably not see another order from me. Their largest offering is 5# bags and at that quantity the price was about $13 per kg or about $5.86 per ...

Today it was Veracruz Finca la Laja (honey processed) from Mexico. I bought these beans from Coffee Bean Corral and I'm very pleased with what I tasted this morning. What caught my eye was- This honey processed coffee is a blend from two farms: Finca La Laja and Finca El Mirador. After depulping, the coffee was dried slowly on covered raised beds for 20 days. This coffee is supremely sweet with a mild orange citric acidity, chocolate and sugar cane flavor profile, and a big creamy body. It is very clean and consistent. By now it's no surprise that the words 'chocolate' and 'sugar cane' are what grabbed me. And that is also code for a roast that has to be fairly dark since that's what accentuates those flavors. So that was the roast plan: take the roast to above about 440°F which should yield a Full City roast. But I got surprised as the roast progressed. Normally I hit fist crack (1C) at around 395°F-400°F. But with these beans, a recent harvest lot, I was ...

What's in the cup? This time it's Mexico Organic Chiapas that I bought from Coffee Bean Corral in Mississippi. All whines about roast management not withstanding, this turned out to be a pretty good cup of coffee. Unfortunately Coffee Bean Corral doesn't make any effort to publish cupping notes so I don't have the usual info-packed diagrams I get from Sweet Maria's. Wish I could pinch hit as a cupper but I just don't have the training. The roast went pretty well with a little less loss of heat as 1C got going (the chart/profile is below). I took the roast to FC (Full City) which is a medium-dark roast. The first time I brewed this just-roasted coffee for our morning cup was a little disappointing. In my limited vocabulary it was a little rough around the edges- maybe a combination of a little bitterness, some unwanted acidity, and it had no distinctive flavor.  I've learned to not give up on a just-roasted coffee since things change as the beans age/season/...

Friday I roasted 2.2 kgs of Costa Rica don Oscar Limones and struggled with managing heat toward the end of the roast. I was concerned if all my fussing around had been enough to save the roast. So on Saturday we tried a cup instead of waiting at least 24 hrs to let the coffee 'rest'. To my taste it was totally blah... like having some water using your just-emptied coffee cup without rinsing it. I knew it was coffee but all the things I cherish were watered down. The Admiral (my biggest fan!) said I had no idea what I was talking about. I blamed it on screwing up the brew but that was no more than a WAG. So I was uneasy about this 2nd try on Sunday. Everything was brewed the same- same amount of coffee (I measure the coffee for the morning brew by volume instead of properly using a scale); same amount of water (again, I use volume instead of a scale like I should); the temperature of the water ( a bonaVITA kettle set to 197°F); wet the grinds and wait for the bloom; and last ...

The daytime temps here in sunny (i.e. HOT ) SE Arizona have been a pain. I roast coffee for a few others and daytime high's have been prohibitive. I try to hand out coffee that is 24 hrs out of the roaster to give our friends time to use it all before the peak flavor is too far gone. Last Wednesday I managed to get in 3 roasts but that left me short by 2# so I filled in with some I had stock piled. One of my friends said 'not to worry' as he had some backup on the way from Peet's. Yesterday I discovered a CARE package of 1# of Peet's decaf, just out of their roaster 48 hours before. Amazing to get coffee from a commercial roaster with that kind of date! Thanks Will... much appreciated! More importantly, the cup I just brought out to the casita is really good. Darker than I usually do a decaf but about right for a Mocca/Mokha/Moka (the spelling depends on your ethnic origin or who did the import). The darkness of the roast depends on what the roaster is trying to em...

This morning it was the new Costa Rica don Oscar Limones . All I can say is... wow! What a great cup of coffee. I think I've made it clear I'm not able to distinguish individual components of 'flavor'. It comes at me all together leaving me unable to describe why I like one coffee and not another. In fact I'm so bad at it I tend to put people that can do that sort of thing on a pedestal. I suspect they have taken the time (and $$- training isn't cheap) to become SCA certified. At this point I've come to realize that a coffee which mentions 'chocolate', 'sugar' and 'body' is more often than not a coffee I can roast adequately well to find something I like. Coffees that include 'bright' or 'acidity' tend to fall to the wayside and left in the stockpile of disappointments that someone else might well have enjoyed. Hence my reference to a description 'a chocolate sundae' though that reference is lacking. Anyway, ...

Today it's Ethiopian organic Limu Kossa Farm decaf , mentioned in the previous post. We tried it for a late-morning cup. I think I may have finally managed to roast a decaf I actually like. I was very pleased with this first try. Sweet, and like most Ethiopian coffees it's filled with interesting flavors that keep changing as the cup cools. And the December Dripper I bought for brewing pour-over coffee worked great. Pour-over is a fussy process with a lot of weighing of empty cup, coffee, then water. Then repeat for the next cup because I have to do our 2 cups sequentially since there's only one scale. But the pour-over results were good, so that negates the annoying sequential process. "Learn to love it!"

Today it's Honduras Comayagua Nueva Alianza ( Comayagua is the place; Nueva Alianza is the co-op or farm that supplied the beans). I roasted this batch to about City+ (C+) which is a little darker roast than the minimum (and I think I could have gone a little darker). As a generalization, beans are considered 'roasted' anytime after first crack (1C). A roast which is stopped just after 1C is called City roast (C). And City roast denotes the start of the color pallet which runs from City (the lightest shade) and gets progressively darker as it moves thru C+, Full City (FC), FC+, Vienna (V) to French Roast (FR). So each roast level (C -> C+ -> FC -> FC+ -> V -> FR) is darker than the preceding level. At some point around FC+ the roasted beans start showing signs of oil on their surface. After FR the beans are pretty much history in terms of drink-ability and are likely to burst into flame inside the roaster if the roast continues. There are 2 ways to watch t...

The Berkey water filter was the catalyst of change. Since the Berkey arrived and I had an epiphany by recalling the original Melitta filter instructions I read back in 1953 or '54, I have changed how I brew using the Melitta. I now use the Melitta similar to the way others use a pour-over filter. And oh-by-the-way, the same method Melitta recommended in the early 1950s: wet the grounds and let it sit till the water passes thru (they call it a bloom), then add the remaining water in a slow steady pour but only in the center of the filter. No more spreading water around all the grounds to get everything wet again while I finish the pour. And no more stirring with a spoon. Not quite a pour-over, which (depending on the 'expert') dictates a pause every 150 mL or so, but the change in flavor was remarkable to me. So, 'in for a penny, in for a pound' . I wanted to experiment by trying a proper pour-over. I found there are dozens of detailed procedures on the 'net...

That's our traditional question every morning as we finish eating and uncover our coffee for the first sip. It's a morning ritual that doesn't vary much and I look forward to it. It gives me a chance to talk about what I roasted. I skip the flowery descriptions that are in the cupping notes below- they're mostly lost on us. This morning's Colombia Timaná was pretty good so it rates a +1 on may makeshift  -1|0|+1 scale... no fractions allowed. Celia was delighted but I thought it was missing something. Yet the preceding day I was very happy with these same beans. So it appears it's sensitive to the brewing process which recently has been changing. (Guess I'd better do one about that too.) This morning we had Colombia Timaná Vereda San Marcos from Sweet Maria's- Cupping Notes: The dry fragrance has smells of sweet baked goods, oatmeal raisin cookies, banana bread, and more. The wet aroma is along the same lines and shows sweet dried fruited smells at C...

... and it's not easy! Those roasts that can't be saved no matter how long they rest have to be remembered! The results of tasting the coffee for flavors and aroma characteristics is called 'cupping'. It's usually done blind, meaning the taster isn't told what it is they're tasting so they aren't prejudiced by a favorite. My simple +1 to -1 scoring system pales in comparison to the SCA/SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association and the affiliated Specialty Coffee Association of America) scoring system of 0 to 100 demanded of those completing their certification process. Their system evaluates the subtleties of specific flavors, aromas and characteristics of each coffee evaluated in cupping. But that takes training and that's not going to happen. The cupping score (upper left) shown here, called a 'spider' diagram, is from Sweet Maria's and is the evaluation  they gave to these beans from Colombia. Inzá is a town (in the 'department' ...