There is a God!

I just spent 6 nights with my family travelling to and from Dubuque, IA. I've had coffee in hotel rooms, lobbies, and restaurants during that whole time and now that I am home I have just roasted the last of my Salimba from Zimbabwe and brewed a very fresh cup..... Yes, my friends, if you have ever contemplated the existence of God allow me to assure you that he does truly exist. How do I know? Because He has put goodness in my cup, it overflows, and my face is wet with tears of sheer joy from the overwhelming urge to worship.

It saddens me that so many people still do not roast there own coffee beans.

Sulawesi

Kalossi

I just roasted the very last of my Sulawesi. What I discovered was that I like this bean roasted to just into the Second Crack. I have been roasting it very dark as I prefer a French Roasted coffee but this bean seems to exhibit a flavor not noticeable when dark roasted.

When roasted just into the Second Crack this coffee smells rich when ground and its flavor possess a hint of sweet-wine flavor. Have fun with your own roasting experiences and let me know how they turn out.

Peaberry Showdown

Papua New Guinea - Kimel Peaberry
Kenya - Kahura Peabery
Tanzania - Kigoma Peaberry

When only one can be the best, I am on the job, and I put the coffee to the test. The other day my wife suggested that we do a taste test and explore the three types of Peaberry coffees that I currently have. So we did. She and I both sampled all three types, and we rated them according to Aroma, Flavor, Body, Complexity, and Uniqueness. Here were the results.

*****Kimel Peaberry*****

Aroma: John- 7 Megan- 8
Flavor: John- 8 Megan- 8
Body: John- 6 Megan- 4
Complexity: John- 4 Megan- 4
Uniqueness: John- 10 Megan- 10
TOTALS: John- 35 Megan- 26 (61)

*****Kahura Peaberry*****
Aroma: John- 7 Megan- 6
Flavor: John- 8 Megan- 6
Body: John- 5 Megan- 7
Complexity: John- 4 Megan- 8
Uniqueness: John- 10 Megan- 6
TOTALS: John- 34 Megan- 35 (69)

*****Kigoma Peaberry*****
Aroma: John- 9 Megan- 5
Flavor: John- 7 Megan- 7
Body: John- 4 Megan- 8
Complexity: John- 7 Megan- 7
Uniqueness: John- 10 Megan- 7
TOTALS: John- 37 Megan- 34 (71)

Since I am writing this I will describe my experience as my wife will have to speak for herself.

As I roasted these beans I had a tough time hearing them crack and so I ended up with 3 different levels of roast with each batch. The Kimel was Dark Roasted, the Kahura was darker roasted, and the Kigoma was sweating oil when I was finished with it. (Mmmmmm - French Roasted coffee)

I liked the Kigoma best for its Aroma. This one jumped out at me but It is completely possible that it had the best aroma because it was the darkest roasted. But, for whatever reason, it was a great Aroma.

The Kimel and the Kahura were the best tasting as they both demonstrated a complex Flavor that made you happy to be alive. This is not to say that the Kigoma made you wish for death but either my palatte was tired by time I got to it or it was not as good as the rest as far as Flavor went.

The Kimel seemed to have the best Body but then after loking at how the Body numbers dropped with the progress of the sampling I suspect that my subjectivity may have been in question.

With Complexity I was looking for definite taste attributes like floral, woody, and nutty. In this arena the Kigoma stood out as it had a definite nutty/woody attribute in its flavor.

I scored each of the 3 coffees with a 10 for Uniqueness because each of them are wholly unique from regular Arabica or Robusta coffees. I did not compare them against one another but with coffee in general.

By the end of our testing my favorite wound up being Kigoma with a combined score of 37 points. I attribute this to it having the best Aroma and only being one point below the rest in Flavor. So there you have it, if you are ever at the coffee shop and the person behind the counter ever asks you what type of Peaberry you would like, look then straigt in the eye and proudly proclaim that you would like a cup od Kigoma Peaberry... (snort) I'm only kidding, none of the coffee shops around you are sophisticated enough to actually serve anything but the swill that you are used to. (snort, snort)

Moving on... Upon completion of the testing I simply blended all three types of the Peaberry together and made a super tasting brew with an awesome body. When blending coffees it will ussually combine the good and the bad and the resultant coffee is either one or the other but since none of these three was ever bad the result of the blend is that the strengths of each Peaberry strengthened the experience of the whole cup.

Until next time - Happy Roasting!!!

You know? If I were to start a coffee shop I would sell coffees by individual type, roast the green beans while you wait, grind it in a fancy-shmantcy Burr grinder, and serve it to you in a one cup French Press as you sit in an over-stuffed chair with your favorite book. Aww, who'm I kidding? That sort of coffee shop would be too expensive to own and operate. Oh well, one can dream can't he?

Salimba

Zimbabwe

As I sit here, my face is wet with tears for I weep at how good this coffee is.

I French-Roasted this batch and this Salimba is as good as anything that I have ever tasted. Its flavor is traditional yet not at all typical. Uh oh, I feel the bubblings of artistic expression rising in my soul.......

Hath not doth my soul to praise,
Your glory for I am made,
Creation cries out for salvation
And with Christ (and I believe coffee) you did save.

Phew, that needed to come out.

Anyway, if I were to start a coffee supply company, I am confident that this would be my number one seller and I am pretty sure that you would be a loyal customer.

Sulawesi

Kalossi

This coffee is not the Backwoods Chocolate Smothered dessert at the end of the meal it is more like the wake-up at the crack of dawn and watch the sun rise over the lake while the camp fire brews your first cup of morning glory. It does not make you glad for taste buds but rather this coffee roasted to a very dark French Roast wipes the cobwebs away and makes you aware that God did a good thing when he created them in the first place.

If you roast you own beans, this is a bean well worth getting. If you don't then all I can say is that I am very sorry for you.

I sure am sad that I am not in the business of selling coffee.

Cepicafe - Peru

This is an organic Peruvian coffee. It has been quite a few weeks since I last sampled it but what was noteworthy was that the flavor in this bean required that it be roasted well into the 2nd crack. If it was not French Roasted then the flavor was not pleasant, but after it had been roasted to very-dark the flavor was indeed good.