As I mentioned earlier, my Christmas present from Megan consisted of the means with which to roast coffee at home. Pictured here is the product of the first batch, roasted Sunday night. More pictures can be found here. (For that matter, more pictures from Christmas and from goose-cooking can be found here.) We also roasted a batch last night. Thus far, we’ve used the stovetop popcorn popper method; we also want to try the stovetop cast-iron method.
What I can say is that it has not been appreciably difficult or time-consuming and the results have been quite drinkable. The flavor is different enough from your typical bag of *$$ (let me know if you don’t understand what I mean) that it’s definitely an adjustment, but so far it’s been an adjustment along the lines of “See, here’s how something you already like can do what it does better.” Perhaps it’s like being used to macaroni and cheese being made with Velveeta and then somebody comes along and makes a white sauce from scratch with Gruyère — and perhaps that’s an analogy that makes sense to me and me alone (like so much)… Anyway, the point is, flavor adjustment or no, I’m not sure there’s any going back.
One other observation: I’m pretty sure the caffeine content is greater this way.
How sure? Pretty sure. I think my wife has gotten to bed sometime around 4am every night since Sunday.
And now I have a friend with whom we’ve started to have hushed conversations about home brewing. This all sort of started four years ago when I decided I wanted to bake our own bread — does it ever end?
Wow, is it the last day of 2008 already? Couldn’t come soon enough. Retrospective to follow shortly.
Leitourgeia kai Qurbana: Contra den Zeitgeist 