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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 don't drink coffee at all, and my wife drinks instant coffee. I don't think you've been settling for anything at all.
You're not wrong, Walter, but I'm doing a bit here, work with me!
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