Colorado Coffee

I have heard people tell me that the best coffee that they have ever had was coffee that they had on hiking trips in Colorado along the Colorado River. I was thinking about that and decided to give my cousin a call who was the Trail Cook for one such excursion company. I asked her what she did to make the coffee along the trail. Here's what she told me.

"Get ICE-COLD water from the river and filter/purify it. Fill a big coffee pot with the water, through some grounds in it, and boil for 5 minutes. After boiling and just before serving, pour a cup of ice cold water on top (this causes the grounds to fall to the bottom of the pot). At this point serve Colorado Coffee."

I live on the St. Clair River and have been considering getting some water from it and making some "St. Clair Coffee" but my wife is aghast at the notion. She doesn't think I could filter or purify it enough to make it safe. I am leaning on her side of the discussion. I am thinking that I will just wait for a good snow fall and make some "Snow Coffee" instead. ;-)

El Conquistador Tarrazu - 2

Costa Rica

I presented this Tarrazu at a coffee demonstration the other day - it was a hit roasted at City. With this batch I roasted it Full-City+ to Espresso when the second crack was in full force and the beans displaying a beautiful oily sheen. I've been grinding just two cups of beans (very coarse) and soaking them in boiling water in the French Press.

This coffee is strong, straightforward, and possesses a flavor that is in full-swing. It is a very enjoyable cup when the temp cools a bit and it has a great body. It is unique in that it burps bacon (please forgive the unsophistication of this description but it seemed the best way to communicate it).

I am learning that there is a happy point with coffee. Too many grounds to water ratio and your coffee is too much like a bully forcing its flavor upon you but too little grounds and you have a cup of hot brown water that desires to be good coffee when it grows-up.

Sumatra - Mandehling Gr. 1 - 5

Indonesia

I just made the final pot of the Mandeling that I had beans for. This pot had a wonderful body and mouth feel as I ground it quite fine. This finer ground seems to have released a really deep flavor that seemed to be dominated by a hint of spiciness but what really stole the show was the body. The richness of the body made this cup more of a meal than a beverage. Yum, yum.

Coffee From The Past

I woke up at 4 am this morning and I could not grind any beans for fear of waking the family. I was hoping to hold out but I could not so I made a cup of Maxwell House grounds dumped in a mug with water, microwaved, and filtered in the french press. It was not what I would consider good - but hey! It was coffee.

This morning's cup reminded me of one of my favorite memories of coffee. Years back (before kids) my wife and I camped on Lake Huron. Again, I woke up at 4 am or so and I decided to go sit on the beach and wait for the sun to rise. My wife came with me so we grabbed blankets, the backpack burner, coffee kettle, grounds, and water. We laid our blanket out on a piece of beach and looked at the stars while we watched the morning freighters silently float by. I filled the screened basket with the cheapest grounds that I could find at Wal-Mart at the time (I had yet to learn how to be a coffee snob), filled the pot with water from my canteen, then I started the coffee to percolating. It took about 20 minutes for coffee to brew and then I poured a cup for myself into my Army issue canteen cup.

I really am not sure what it tasted like (though I do remember chewing some grounds) but sitting on the Lake Huron beach, under the stars, watching the freighters, it really did not matter what the coffee tasted like. To be honest, I could have been drinking some warmed fruity girls' tea and I think I would have enjoyed the experience. But, then again, it was a great experience and I am really glad that it is a bad cup of coffee that triggers that memory for me now.

Coffee Demonstration

Today at church one of the guys asked me about how to roast coffee. So I volunteered to demonstrate the process using my popcorn popper at our small group bible study that afternoon - it was a hit. Not only was there a buzz at church about the roasting demonstration but everyone wants to roast there own coffee now. Hee-hee, I feel like the Brain who is attempting to take over the world.

To the left (from the left) are my popcorn popper, jug of filtered water, green coffee beans, 12 cup coffee maker with conical screen filter, aluminum pie plate to cool the beans on, and a burr grinder. I let everyone see and smell the green beans and then added 2/3 of a cup to the popper. With-in 10 minutes the beans were a nice shade of brown and finished having fully entered the First Crack.
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the coffee.
My continued preaching of how it is a mortal sin to add cream or any flavoring to black coffee made people feel obligated to at least try it plain black. Afterward I heard from person after person that they did not need to add flavoring because the coffee was so good. Ahhh, converts. (Sidebar - Do you know why they flavor coffee? Because it is bad coffee in the first place) At least two people commented that they are going to seek out a popcorn popper of their own and so I am well on my way to starting the green coffee bean co-op that I need to help with my coffee bean purchases

This was my first coffee roasting demonstration and it turned out well. I had pieces of 72% and 86% dark chocolate to sample with the coffee which seemed to go over well with the ladies. I am looking forward to having more demonstrations like this so that more people can learn the joy of truly experiencing coffee.

Sumatra - Mandehling Gr. 1 - 4

Indonesia

I made this cup using the one-cup french press. The grounds were a mix of popcorn and stove-top roasted beans. I set the burr grinder to 15 for a coarse ground and only ground 2 cups of grinds.

The taste is strong but yet very smooth and pleasing. The flavor of the Mandehling is classic which makes me think it would be a great base for a blend with the right bean which has a sweeter attribute.

As this cup cooled the body became quite dominant and a woodsy flavor emerged. I really began to appreciate the deep simplicity of this cup. I suspect that I have to grind this bean a little finer for the 12 cup coffee maker and add enough grounds to make it stronger.

Nirvana? Have I Arrived?

I think I have made a break through. Today I went into the local Salvation Army store to look for a bread maker to convert into a coffee roaster (see left) but instead of finding a bread maker I found a popcorn popper for $2.50! So I bought it.

This evening I made a 1/3 cup of Mandehling and the results were much better than I had hoped for or even expected. I could hear the First Crack but the transition between the First and the Second was more difficult to hear. Between the noise of the popper's fan and my kids yelling and playing behind me, I was mostly flying by sight (ie. the chaff and the color of the beans).

The image to the right illustrates two batches of beans side by side. On the left are the beans from stove top roasted in a standard aluminum pot and the beans on the right are the ones roasted in the popcorn popper (Click the image to get a closer look). The beans done on the stove top are less uniform in color, some beans look under roasted while some shine with the oils of a dark roast. The beans from the popper are uniform in color and roast - These are a City to Full-City roast.

I made an 11-cup pot of coffee with 1.75 oz. of these beans. I set the grinder to a coarseness of 10 from Fine and the brew was great! I will admit that this was not the best cup of coffee that I had ever had but it was close. Now that I have the popper to roast my beans in I am looking forward to retrying my coffees and experiencing them uniformly roasted. I will keep you posted.

Obsessive Compulive Behavior & Coffee

So I am obsessive - I own that. I don't know why it is it's just a reality that I have lived with all of my life. I go through phases and off the top of my head I remember a few of them.

I wanted to be a writer. I wrote many things but the reality is that I am no good at it. Every now and then I get this notion that "now I will be better" but I know that I won't. So I sat with a cup of coffee and considered what I wanted to do next.

My wife and I saw the movie "October Sky" so the next week we began building model rockets to learn the "science" behind it. I had grand visions of actually learning complicated math because of it. After a few months of that I sat with a cup of coffee and wondered what was next.

A friend of mine ordered a bottle of wine for dinner one night and he sniffed the cork and rejected it and made the waiter open a different bottle. So I wanted to learn the snobbery of wine tasting. After a few months of that I lost the taste for it and sat with a cup of coffee and decided that beer, then scotch (in that order) would be next - and they were.

I could continue but I am sure that you see the pattern. Now I have this blog about coffee. How long will it last? I am not sure but coffee has been with me since the time that I was in the ARMY. Whether I keep roasting my own and writing about it remains to be seen but for now it is my current obsession.

I guess there are worse things to be obsessed with.

Sumatra - Mandehling Gr. 1 - 3

Indonesia

The aroma of this Sumatran Mandehling is quite simply exquisite. All I did was ground it and my wife walked out of the bedroom and commented how good it smelled. There is certainly a pleasure in the aroma - even before brewing.

I roasted these beans to City and I ground 6 cups of them at a coarse 13 with the burr grinder (heh, heh, the new grinder has settings like that). This is a very good cup of coffee. The brew possesses an excellent full-bodied buttery mouth feel and the flavor is classical and earthy. There is also a slight spicy note but that is only noticeable upon close inspection of the flavors.

Mocca Matari - 4

Yemen

The Mocca Matari is my favorite bean (so far) but this batch seems to have the least amount of distinguishing flavor of all the times that I have made it. I think the problem with this pot was that I used my new burr grinder to grind the beans and I think it is just too strong. The body is very good and the mouth-feel is quite pleasant but the flavor is lacking. I suspect that when I learn to make grounds that don't make such strong coffee - the flavor will be back.