Please enjoy this guest article by a great friend and coffee man…
There is some mystique in being a do-it-yourselfer. It is almost like there is no such thing as an expert anymore. If you are not an expert, please do not pass yourself off as one. It’s not that I’m against being a do-it-yourselfer, if I want a fence built, I do it myself. If my neighbor wants a fence built, I would recommend that he hire an expert. Why do people bring over homemade wine and try passing it off as good as the stuff at stores. (This is NOT a comparison with two-buck-chuck, but with actual wine.) They did not grow up in the vineyards of France or Italy and start studying it from a young age, they claim that by reading a book, buying equipment and some grape juice, that they are now the expert. I build my fence; they can drink their own wine.
This brings me to my new pet peeve, home roasted coffee. I know back in the good old days, if you drank coffee, you roasted it yourself. (We’re talking a century ago, when we were just out of the caves.)You did this in a fry pan. Ever taste Maxwell House coffee? This was the vast improvement over the fry pan and made coffee drinkable at home. For a good cup of coffee people still went to venues where there was a professional roaster. If you couldn’t roast, you were out of business. Now, people convert an old hot air popcorn maker or go high end for the $5000 professional model. They still aren’t experts.
Roasting coffee is easy, apply heat till done. It’s sort of like making wine, rot grapes till done. The secret is knowing how much and when done is. The amateur follows a formula; the expert follows his eyes, ears and nose. The amateur roasts this year’s Yirgacheffe just like last years and does his Hacienda La Esmeralda the same as his Yirgacheffe.
You drink your coffee; I’ll get mine from my local roaster.