I want some coffee!

... to hear that others enjoy the Chiapas as much as we do. Yay!! Thanks y'all! So now I'm ready for another bag but I'm holding off till I hear from Coffee Bean Corral (the supplier). They invited me to participate in their discount program back in April but I never responded. Saturday I thought I'd give it a try. They are certainly looking for commercial roasters and not hobby roasters like me, but what the hell. I thought I'd at least ask and see what happens. The discount is an extra 5% but they offer free shipping to accepted accounts when the order is over $150. The last batch was $28 for shipping a 25# box, so the perc is significant. In the meantime I did 6# of Chiapas for the fan club (that includes us!) plus a pound of Liquid Amber (an espresso blend) for my neighbor Will from his stash. 7# of bagged coffee (3.9 kg of greens) turned out to be a bit much. I was pretty whipped by the time I was done. I'll have to spread this around next week...   ...

... on this Chiapas we're having. A week ago I roasted some la Laja (the name of a farm) from Veracruz, Mexico for friends here in the park. It can be pretty good but it looks like I trashed this roast! We dumped our 1# bag and went for more of the Chiapas (from unidentified farms) I bought from Coffee Bean Corral in Jackson, MS. The problem with the la Laja is that I took the roast too dark. We both thought the coffee tasted a little burnt. There is no point in trying to drink poorly roasted coffee when you have an alternative. So... out with the old; in with the new. In the meantime I continue to support the development effort of RoasTime software from Aillio. The design is that of Matt-the-Code-Warrior (he lives in Idaho) who has turned the requirements that Aillio (offices in Taiwan) has devised into working software. The latest struggle is related to "Recipes" which are short sets of instructions that automate the roasting process inside RoasTime. Frankly I poo-po...

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...

... and now we're into a bag of Chiapas .  For a couple years Ethiopian has been a favorite of ours and I had accumulated a variety of samples. Generally it has great appeal to us because of the interesting flavors that disclose themselves as the cup cools. My impression is that most have been sweet and have a wonderful taste for a cool day. I genuinely wish I had the training to describe each of those unique flavors that appear sequentially as I sip my way to the bottom of the cup! The map above sticks a pin where the Guji district is (thank you Google Maps!). It looks to be in the far western part of Ethiopia. Google Maps got no hit on Anasora in the Guji district so I have to guess that most be the processing facility or the coffee broker. From the shading it appears to be a mountainous region which is what we should expect for a coffee grower. Location aside, this sample of Ethiopia Guji Anasora (Ana Sora?) was a winner. Other than a few grams of greens left in the bag, I prett...

... and I've been busy the whole time. But coffee is only half the story. The other half is more time consuming and it has everything to do with software development for the roaster. Thankfully the programmer, Matt-the-Code-Warrior, has been able to resolve all the issues thrown his way. As a result we seem to be closing the first development phase of RoasTime 3.0 (RT3). Along with the new release of RT3 came an extensive redesign of the Aillio server system. The Aillio servers are integral to operation of the roaster since it offers storage of all roast profiles, management of bean inventory, all error codes are saved on those servers, and it is the platform for the Aillio roasting community.  Besides changes in the way Roast.World operates, they also migrated the physical location of all data from server space on AWS (Amazon Web Services) to Google servers... something to do with easier transition if they have to add server capacity (way beyond my pay grade!). But the actual tran...

...but it was 5 lbs of some really nice organic coffee from the Chiapas region of Mexico. I just posted a map of the Chiapas region a few posts back so I'll insert a chart of the roast instead. This is the first of 4 roasts and is representative of how they all went. I've been using Drum speed to manage the Rate of Rise curve (RoR) and that seems to be working pretty well. The plan is to get RoR to fall steadily to something below 10F° from first crack to the end of the roast without stalling the roast. I did a fairly good job on this one but I can't *really* say I did great till I get to taste it in about a week. But at least I have coffee to pass out tomorrow that I don't have to worry about since this is the variety we're enjoying right now. Sweet and chocolatey which is my main criteria. And this is pretty much the look of the new software as development for RoasTime 3.0 starts winding down. The changes aren't dramatic but it just feels a lot better. It'...

"If you use cream or sugar, you don't like coffee- you like caffeine!" So said one YouTuber that has the same need to have coffee that tastes like it was roasted. So we (the Admiral and I) drink coffee with nothing added. No milk or cream, no sugar. No flavorings. If you like the taste of coffee you need nothing added to the coffee. I think my strident view originated with using Cremora or CoffeeMate in the bad-old-days when I was still working. Disgusting stuff! To my taste, sugar was just as bad. Completely distracts from what you're trying to enjoy. And then there's the roasted coffee that has had a flavoring added. Flavors like hazelnut. Or a Starbucks annual celebration of Fall with pumpkin spice. Sorry guys... no joy here! Just... Ok, now I have to 'fess up. I love Cuban coffee. Cuban coffee is like an over-grown cappuccino made with espresso from coffee grown in Cuba. I ask for a Cuban, dark, three scoops. That means extra espresso (dark) with 3 scoops ...