The Art in Roasting

Indian Monsooned Malabar - Roasted 

Have you ever Googled for images of roasted coffee beans?  If you have then you have seen the many images of coffee beans with a uniform color.  This uniformity is indicative of a mechanical roast which is scientifically heated, timed and cooled.  Not so with my roasts.  My roasts are not uniform because the process I use to roast is not at all scientific - it's artistic.


When you go to Target, Kohl's, K-Mart, or Walmart to buy art, what you are actually getting is a mass produced image of something that may have been art at one time - but no longer.  Real art is what you get when you go to Sotheby's.


Take the image above for example (click the image for a larger version).  Highlighted by the yellow star is a lighter bean.  The lighter beans retain the intrinsic flavor of the bean itself.  In this bean is an awesome flavor that is only found in the soil of the Malabar region of India.  It is wet-processed leaving the fruit of the coffee berry to dry onto the coffee bean itself until it naturally flakes away.  Then, the bean retains the natural flavor of the environment of that region of the world because it has been cured for about a year through the monsoon season which wet and dried and wet and dried and wet and dried this bean.  Yes, it took time but the flavor is wonderful because of it.


Now notice the bean toward the top in the blue star.  This bean is very dark and oily, it has the strong flavor of the roasting process.  The moisture is all gone out of this bean and the sugars caramelized under the heat to create a great roasted flavor.  If you will notice the bean in the purple star, this also is a dark roasted bean and if you will notice a rough patch on the bean, this shows that the bean was taken well into what is called the Second-Crack, a stage of the roasting process that tells me when to stop roasting (any darker and I would begin to make charcoal).


So there you have it, my Monet, my Van Gogh, my Dali!  The piece that you see above is originally mine and it will never be duplicated - it is a one of a kind and this specific one is being shipped to soldiers stationed in Afghanistan.  


Thank you to those who serve! I hope this little piece of art brings you as much joy as I had creating it.