Some of my favorite hobbies include playing guitar, painting, and writing. However, a new hobby I have begun developing is of a daily benefit to both me and Emily. Every morning we enjoy a cup of coffee to start off the day. I'd done some researching into ways to make a great cup of coffee. It started off with a Chemex coffee brewer. The more and more research I did, the more I heard about people who roast their own coffee in-home. This intrigued me. Eventually I convinced Emily to let me give it a try.
There are several ways to home-roast. You can buy fancy machines that cost anywhere from $100-$1000, or you can employ different manual methods. You can simply use a baking sheet and oven, a cast iron pan, a stove-top popcorn roaster, or my current (and very elementary) method: the air popcorn popper.
The great thing about this method is how easily you can find an air popper in thrift/discount stores, making this hobby much more cost effective. Once I had a roaster, I needed to find a place to buy some green (unroasted) coffee beans. I'm still deciding on my preferred store, but three i have used so far are www.sweetmarias.com, www.burmancoffee.com, and www.paradiseroasters.com. Between online sales, bulk shipping discounts, etc. I usually am able to get my coffee for around $5.50/lb on average.
Here are some pictures of a Guatemalan Antigua Finca "Colombia" batch I roasted last week:
Emily and I love peeking open the jar a few hours after the roast. I never smelled fresh coffee until I started roasting it myself. So many complex aromas, each origin and blend smelling so different. I usually give the freshly roasted beans between 12-24 hours of a resting period. This method combined with my Chemex brewer means that we get to drink some of the best coffee we've ever tasted every morning. What's more, it's even cheaper than cheap and burnt beans like at the supermarket and chain coffee shops.
You must brew some for me.
ReplyDeletePS. You're crazier about coffee than I am.