Gene Cafe'

A week ago I did two coffee roasting demos and I featured the Bali Blue Moon.  I used the professional Gene Café roaster and the coffee turned out much different from my first experience roasting in the popcorn poppers.  In my opinion the coffee was under-roasted in the first demo and over-roasted in the second.  Both seemed a touch bitter to me but my guests were gracious enough to tell me that the coffee was good – at least better than the Maxwell House they had just drank.  So I decided that I need to roast a couple batches and get to know what was going on.

The first batch that I roasted was called a "High-Roast" (464 deg. F: 15 min.) in the Gene Café.  It was on the under-roasted side and left the bean rawer than it was roasted.  When I ground it and brewed it we (me and my wife) sampled it and found it to be true to its description of very fruity in flavor.  My wife commented that it reminded her of an Orange Zinger tea.  Indeed we could identify that this bean was actually grown between tangerine and orange trees.  However, my wife and I not being fans of Orange Zinger tea ended up dumping the pot and moving on to roast #2.

This second batch I moved up a notch on the roasting scale to "City-Roast" (482 deg. F: 17 min.) which was enough more to take the coffee from under-roasted to almost perfectly roasted (I say almost perfectly roasted because I don't know what perfect is in the world of coffee).  This coffee tasted balanced with only undertones of the fruitiness (like seeing something in the periphery) from the previous roast.  The natural nuttiness of this bean blended with the fruit dominance and made the fruit as though it were just a memory and an ever so slight chocolate note on the finish and after taste.   

What is the difference between roasting with the popcorn poppers and the fancy Gene Café?  There are two main ones as I see it.  First, roasting with the popcorn poppers is more of an art form as the result is singularly dependent upon a human to listen, look, and determine when the beans have been roasted enough.  When roasting with the Gene Café the human need only set the controls for the result they desire and then they are free to push start to begin the automatic process.  And second, I consider the two roasting methods best described as the "Petal-to-the-Metal Roasting" versus the "Oh-Dear-Heaven-I-Think-My-Grandma-is-Behind-the-Wheel Roasting" methods.  With the PttM method, the heat is full and furious and takes about 7 minutes to roast a batch of green beans and the ODHITMGiBtW method is well, about 30-35 minutes from start to finish per batch.  Granted, the ODHITMGiBtW method makes about twice what the PttM method does per batch but since I am the type of person who would rather drive 50 miles out of my way to avoid 5 minutes of stop-and-go traffic can you guess which method I prefer?

So, as it turns out, I have tried the Bali Blue Moon three or four different ways now and the result has always been a different.  Coffee is truly like wine tasting in that there is much to be explored in each cup if only we will take the time to go spelunking.  Please, the next time you have a cup of coffee consider exploring your cup and be determined to experience it fully.