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. 

Mexican Chiapas

On the Southern most edge of Mexico, just before you get to Guatemala, is Chiapas (chee-ah-pass).  Once there you may ask the locals for a cup of cafe and they will give you a brew from of their home-grown beans.

The Chiapas is a mild cup that sports a dominant fruit-wine flavor.  Roasted just 60-seconds into the second-crack this bean's profile was just slightly Full-City roasted.  Here the flavor of the roast is obvious while the intrinsic flavor of the bean remains present.

While this bean is roasted a strong smoky-nut aroma is revealed making the roaster assume that nut will be present in the flavor however that flavor never materialized.  Only a sweet aroma that had a dry-wine effect was present.  Overall it was a clean cup that nosed sweet and sipped brightly a midst a panorama of floral notes.

Bali Blue Moon

Click For Larger

Just South-East of Vietnam in the Flores Sea comes the Bali Blue Moon.  Highly regulated and hand-washed this bean looked very promising.


While I roasted I noticed that there was very little chaff.  It smoked a little on the initial heat-up and then it did not smoke again until the end of the roast.  I read that this coffee was better when the bean was roasted to a Full-City Roast so I took it in to the Second Crack when the flecking was quite evident.  The beans looked very good and dry except for a couple that showed signs of oiling.


I brewed with the syphon pot which uses a slightly higher than normal grind/water ratio.  The coffee I would say was strong because of this but not so strong that bitterness became a factor.  

On a scale from 1 - 10 I rate this coffee a 9 - Right up there with the Peaberry.  The aroma is fruity like a sweet-and-sour sauce and very pleasing to the nose.  The flavor was solid and smooth as it boasted of a cocoa-bean note as well as a mellow tone.  The brightness of this cup was medium though it was quite complex and deep.  The body of this cup was buttery and weighed on the pallet long enough to let you know it was there and lingered on the tongue like a fond memory.

The Coffee Goddess

I needed to roast some coffee for myself today and my daughter wants to learn the art - so I started her on her training.  She roasted her first batch of beans today to a Full-City roast- a Rwandan Bugisu.   This is not my favorite bean and I certainly would not serve it to customers, however it is a perfect bean for learning how to roast with.


She is pictured holding her first batch.  She learned how much bean to put in the roaster, how to assess its color and listen for its two-separate cracks.  As I write this she will not let me forget that we still yet need to grind and brew a cup for sampling.  


Ahhh, my little snob is blossoming...


Please visit anchorbayroasts.com and find this month's easter-egg for your chance to win FREE coffee.  This is the good stuff too, none of the bland stuff.  I figure that when you taste fresh single origin coffee that all other coffee you drink will suffer in comparison.

Indian Monsooned Malabar

Like the fallen leaves on an autumn day, I loved this cup as much as I love the fall smells and colors.

This was the first time that I tried the Monsooned Malabar. I roasted it just until the second-crack began in order to keep more of the original flavor of the bean than infusing the flavor of roast.

What I noticed as I roasted was that the beans smoked pretty good but then the smoke seem to diminish and the chaff was very limited. This Monsooned worked its way through the expected roasting stages without complaint. After about 8 minutes it was finished and I started it to cooling.

I roasted 3oz of the green bean for a 2.5oz yield of roast (16.7% shrinkage). I placed 1oz of whole beans in 750ml glass container, topped off with water, corked the bottle and sat it in the sun for the day. I am attempting to make sun-coffee. I will let the beans soak in the sun day-after-day until all of the beans have sunk to the bottom of the bottle. I'll post again after I have sampled the brew.

Then I brewed a cup of the coffee in a French Press. I ground the beans medium and added a 1/2 ounce (by wieght) to 12 ounces of boiling filtered water. When I added the water to the grounds the grounds frothed with freshness and there I left it to steep for 4 minutes. I then poured 2 - 6oz cups and me and the wife sampled the brew.

As I smelled the aroma I noticed a very cocoa note where my wife said it smelled like a casserole but she could not name the casserole. In any respect, the aroma was different - but in a good way smelling very distinctly of a rich character. As we tasted the coffee my first thought was that it was very smooth to the pallet and she mentioned that it was very mild to the taste. It was both of those with a very homey-type flavor that made me wish that I were in the woods enjoying the songs of birds, the sight of the fallen leaves from trees, and the smells of a damp-autumn and sun-shiny day. All in all this was a very good roast with a great character worthy of being one of God's great creations.

Oh, I almost forgot, I ordered a syphon brewer today - I'm as excited as a young maiden lying in wait for the ball with the prince. I'll post about this in a few days.

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.

Kigoma Peaberry

Tanzania

My wife suggested that I roast this batch well past the second crack but just before charcoal. She said that the peaberry always seem to have a green taste and she wanted to know if French roasting the beans would knock the green out of it. It did -and how.

This roast was so good that I thought I had a professional roaster make these beans. The only thing missing was the snobbish barista, the calming brown colors, and the college beatnik sitting in the corner trying to look cool with his Oxford Dictionary of Modern Poetry. Had Little Orphan Annie's Daddy WarBucks tasted this brew he would have commissioned me to full-time employment in the making of coffee beans.

This bean makes roasting easy and encourages the lowly roaster to have great aspirations of hope among a world that is too easily tricked into drinking bad coffee because of the cream, sugar, and flavors galore.

If I were in the business of roasting beans, I would sell this coffee at a premium - and you would buy it.

Mocca Matari - 5

Yemen

Like school kids in the lunch-line on pizza day - this coffee made me happy.

The aroma was rich, thick, and warm like an evening fire. It was robust with nostalgia and made you say "wow". The flavor was as committed as Little Ann was committed to Old Dan. Thick and solid this coffee did not let you down, chasing down the ring tails of satisfaction.

That said, the Mocca Matari is a demanding mutt - as fickle as a cat. Some beans you can roast without too much attention and still brew a cup that contains the flavor that you expected. However, the Mocca in this bean will not be realized until it has been roasted quite dark - well into the second crack. Though the flavor is good at the cinnamon level the potential will still be in the bean waiting for the maturity that comes only with a fuller roast.

Kigoma Peaberry

Tanzania

Just like the Paupa New Guinea, this Peaberry possesses a sophisticated flavor that only the most seasoned coffee lovers will appreciate. Like the flavor of Borolo Pio Cesare, this coffee is full of complexity.

This is a good coffee but one I fear will not be liked by most poeple. It really must be drank like a wine because one must approach it like the connesuer of wine rather than a teenager drinking a Budweiser. I do appreciate it for a change but the flavor is odd (sort of like chickory flavoring) and so it will not become my favorite.

Kigoma Peaberry

Tanzania

Just like the Paupa New Guinea, this Peaberry possesses a sophisticated flavor that only the most seasoned coffee lovers will appreciate. Like the flavor of Borolo Pio Cesare, this coffee is full of complexity.

This is a good coffee but one I fear will not be liked by most people. It really must be drank like a wine because one must approach it like the taster of dine wine rather than a teenager drinking a Budweiser. I do appreciate it for a change but the flavor is odd (sort of like chicory flavoring) and so it will not become my favorite.