Fresh, fresh coffee!

[javasaurus]

I found unroasted coffee beans for sale at my local Giant, and tonight I did my first home-roasting!

Home roasting was standard until about a hundred years ago. The fact that people don't do it now is a tribute to our desire for convenience over quality! Fresh roasted coffee is by far the best, it begins to lose its flavor about a week after roasting, and the stuff you buy in the store was roasted possibly up to a year ago. (when I've purchased freshly roasted coffee, it really is fabulous for several days, then slowly degrades to something resembling Folgers).

It produces a lot of smoke! This apparently is normal, but stinky. House is currently venting. Cats are still glaring at me a little. Hopefully it will be sufficiently aired out before blueeowyn gets home.

I don't get to really taste my coffee until morning. After roasting, it takes several hours to reach peak flavor -- something about CO2 and oils and some such. I'll let y'all know how it turns out!

Comments

[queenmaggie.livejournal.com]

You could always tell when they were roasting coffee in the little shop in Frederick: there'd be a haze of that smokey odor over the whole street.

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

There is a coffee shop in Columbia (Riverside, on Dobbin Road) that roasts their own. One day, I had the misfortune of being there when they decided to roast with customers in the store!!! It was so loud and there was so much acrid smoke that we (the customers) had to leave.

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

define "sufficiently aired out"

There was a definite smoky smell when I got home but it didn't have that horrible STENCH of a espresso thing (it may have been the machine but in one of my previous offices it was FOUL whenever someone made espresso).

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

I did say "hopefully." :P

[sparowe]

Mmm. I can't drink coffee anymore, but I remember! :)