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Fellow Mottizens, I have a most shameful confession to make. Despite being a card-carrying member of the notorious
playercoffee haters, I have been living a lie.I have been settling for coffee straight from a Keurig.
I hear your gasps and mutterings! I know! There's no excusing my behavior! For the sake of explanation, however, I will simply state that my coffee roaster was in desperate need of cleaning, which between my limited bandwidth and the tremendous amount of buildup in the roaster, became a fucking project.
That project has been completed, and I am happy to report that after two roasts, I can now confidently say we are back, baby! You see, the first roast, while good, was just muddled enough that I had some doubts. I could say for sure that the annoying meat-like savory note that cropped up was gone, as was the slight but persistent rancid flavor that often accompanied it, so it sure seemed like the cleaning had been effective. However, my coffee, a fine Ethiopian Dry Process from Hambela, while quite tasty and definitely a significant step up flavor-wise, failed to overwhelm me with its magnificence! What had happened, I asked myself. I knew that the roast had taken several minutes longer than usual, a definite potential issue, especially since hotter, faster roasts with my roaster tend to produce better coffee IME. Damn that cold snap! Or perhaps the beans were showing their age and indeed, they were no longer fresh from the vendor and quite possibly past their prime. Or, worse still, had my palate atrophied in the intervening time? Was I no longer able to enjoy the subtle depths of a premium cuppa? True, I could definitely taste fruity sweetness in many sips, as well as a chocolate note, yes, likely baker's chocolate, but outside of the traditional, relatively refined delicacy of a nice pour-over, I didn't get anything definite from the roast, despite enjoying it for over a week. The tasting notes indicated that there should be blueberry preserves, peach and dark plum notes in there, along with sorghum syrup (whatever that's supposed to taste like), and dried dates. I feared the worst.
The next roast, I brought out the big guns. You see, I still had a wee bit of another Ethiopian Dry Process from Guji, the infamous Gerbicho Rogicha. Hands down the best coffee to ever come out of my bullet, the Guji was even older than the Hambela before it, but I had nothing better in my inventory with which to test my skills and my palate. I roasted it on Sunday, another cold day, but managed to get it roasted three minutes faster than my previous batch, and happily locked it away waiting for it to out-gas and mature while I finished the Hambela. Today was my first cup of Guji, and I boy did it ever deliver the goods. The big notes that I remembered from the coffee were still there, slightly muted from their heights of peak freshness as they were. Still, it was deliciously reassuring to taste its bounty of flavors, from the pervasive limeade citrus note to the delicate floral sips as the cup cooled down, and an occasional-but-delicious strawberry fruitiness in-between. It was Good, and now I intend to roast down my burgeoning stores of green coffee and enjoy them while I still can. I even have two separate bags of Gesha to try out, which I look forward to roasting, and will do so as soon as I regain my roasting footage with a couple more batches. Stay thirsty and caffeinated, my friends!
@TowardsPanna
I'm glad you found your way back to some Good coffee experiences!
I think @waffles brings up an important consideration: when coffee becomes a high volume routine it loses some of its luster, no matter how fine and fresh the whole beans may be.
I've been drinking too much coffee lately - turning it into some sort of crutch during the day, relying on it to boost my energy after working hard. Three strong cups a day is too much and my sleep has suffered as a result. I also haven't been able to pick out many subtle notes - and on that note!, I've wondered why the ground beans always smell much more intensely and complex right after grinding, compared to the finished liquid in the cup, which is much more muted and simple. Because of this I've included a stirring pin in my latest order. I will try to arrange the grounds properly before pouring, and then stirring while it infuses.
When the order arrives I'll be trying out what will be, by far, the most expensive home made coffee I've ever tried: Honduras Geisha. At almost 4.50 USD (eqv.) per 16g cup! In the meantime I'll try to reduce my tolerance a bit and improve my sleep by drinking a minimal amount of coffee.
Yeah, that can definitely do it. At my own personal height of madness, I would have a shot of espresso in the morning, then head down to my local craft coffee shop to talk coffee and grab something from them, which could be a nitro cold brew, a pour-over, a "dialed in" (y'know, that fancypants mixture of steamed cold brew, coconut oil, and grass-fed butter), or even just another shot of espresso from them. This actually improved my palate overall, but it could give me sleep issues as well, which isn't saying much these days but still. COVID plus inflation killed them, alas, but I'm better off without all of that extra caffeine, even though I miss nerding out on coffee with the staff there.
On the ground beans part, brewing just doesn't extract all of that wonderful flavor and aroma that the act of grinding has just released from the bean. The idea behind espresso is actually to extract the maximum flavor from the bean while leaving the bitterness behind in the puck, and while it definitely produces the most intensely flavorful brew of all methods of making coffee, it can definitely blunt the more refined and delicate notes of a particular coffee, which is where pour-overs come in. Just about all of us who get way too into coffee end up preferring either espresso for flavor or pour-overs for the subtlety.
Ooh, please share your experience with that once you've tried it a couple of times! I actually have three pounds of Guatemalan Gesha that I'll roast as soon as I'm confident in my roasting again, which will probably be a few weeks from now, but in the meantime I'd love to hear your opinion on it. Speaking of which, I'd be interested in hearing about whether or not the stirring pin makes a difference for you, if you wouldn't mind. Cheers!
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