Coffee! A Journey into Taste

 

“don’t drink coffee for the taste, I <em>“don’t drink coffee for the taste,</em> I drink it mainly to wake up,” announced my ex-sister-in-law one day as we were visiting my brother, her, and their family in Florida.

To which I had to demur…

For me, coffee is all about taste. And life is too short for bad coffee, to boot — I’m not above tossing a bag if it doesn’t meet the taste standard.

The Beginning

I didn’t start drinking coffee until I was 27. I abstained from that (and tea and alcohol) on religious grounds up to that point. When I started questioning those religious grounds on various points, the forbidden substances were on the table.

Setting that all aside, my first dip into coffee-ness was supermarket canned coffee — most were terrible, but I think I settled on Yuban at the time. It was ok. Over subsequent years we progressed to whole-bean coffees of various origins and blends, playing with various grinding and brewing methods, and exploring different tastes. A trip to Italy was an education and we learned about Italian coffees (and moka pots.)

That all went well and interesting, and then one day Rose and I went to Kona, Hawaii, where we visited one of the famed coffee plantations. We took a nice tour, looked at the coffee shrubs, and listen to the presentation.

At the end of the tour, we were guided to an area where there were strange-ish looking contraptions on a stand — seven or eight small, perforated drums suspended above gas burners (what we later came to identify as sample roasters.) The guide pulled out some beans, scooped them into one of the drums, asked us what our roast preferences were, and then fired up the gas burner underneath the drum.

Over the next twenty minutes or so, she went through the process of the roast, adjusting the flame now and then, and explaining what she was doing, and what we were hearing, seeing, and smelling as the roast progressed.

It was all very interesting — in the end, she bagged our roasted samples up for us, we thanked her for the tour and the samples and continued our Island visit.

Revelation

t wasn’t It wasn’t until we returned home to San Diego that the bags fell out of our luggage as we were unpacking: “Oh, yeah. We should grind up these beans and give them a try.”

We brought the water up to a boil, ground the beans, and dumped them into a Melitta filter (smelled good…), and then poured the water over the grounds, per standard pour-over procedure. After a few minutes, we took a sip.

Our eyes got really big.

We took another sip.

“OH MY GOD!!! THE TASTE!!!” we both exclaimed.

That was the most amazing coffee we had ever tasted.

Now, to be sure, Kona is excellent coffee. But, what was foremost in my mind was the freshly roasted aspect. To me, that was the differentiating factor between what we had just tasted vs what had gone before.

And so, began our adventure deep into coffee-geek-ness, and investigating what it would take to fresh roast our own coffee.

That journey will be chronicled in a series of articles in the Adventures section.

I’ll post links as it develops.

PS: My roaster died a couple of months ago. I’ve tried various bagged coffees, but they’re all rot-gut. I’m ordering a new roaster, tomorrow…