
Fast forward to maybe a year ago, when my sister came to
visit. Sweet girl that she is, she bought us coffee – the kind of glorious,
small-batch flavored roasts that are readily available near her but that have
long eluded us out here. We were delighted. Until we realized she’d
accidentally grabbed whole bean instead of pre-ground! For all my kitchen toys, believe it or not, I
didn’t have anything to grind coffee beans with. We remedied that promptly with
this gem from Amazon. (Note: it’s fabulous, and I highly recommend
it.)
We quickly realized we’d had no idea what we were missing –
freshly ground coffee is notably different than the pre-ground stuff!
Admittedly, I’d known that at an academic level from my years of working in a
coffee shop. But I’ve never made the translation to home brewed coffee, and so
never really thought about it. Now happy owners of a grinder, we switched
completely to buying whole bean coffee and grinding our own as needed every
couple days. (This takes almost no time, and is super easy.)
Somewhere in there, we saw thisvideo, which piqued our interest in home roasting of our beans. Though I
haven’t had a chance to do as much additional research as I’d like, the
concepts totally line up with what we know to be true about other foods and
made a lot of sense. So, on a whim, we bought a bag of unroasted (green) coffee
beans to experiment with.
Then we got crazy busy with school and work and life, and
the bags sat neglected on the shelf until this spring. As I was working through
my annual Spring Rotation (wherein I try diligently to clear the cabinets of
any foods, condiments, etc. that need to be eaten or tossed in preparation for
the coming spring/summer/fall bounty), I came across the beans and decided to
give home roasting a go. No fancy roaster, techniques, or tools – just coffee
beans, the stove top and a cast iron skillet. I eyeballed the end result and
called it good. And oh, was it good!
Having done the math (and a little more research), I’m
somewhat miffed to have been paying more for pre-roasted coffee made with
unspecified “natural flavors” (which typically are NOT natural or good for you)
when I can so easily buy green beans in bulk, roast them myself as needed, and
get a better (and cleaner) result!
And then I realize that this officially makes us horrible –
and completely unintentional - coffee snobs.
So if we go out to do coffee with you, have no fear – our coffee
snobbery is not intentional, and we are not looking down on anyone else’s
coffee. Just marveling at having found yet another thing that we had no idea we
could do so easily or rewardingly ourselves.
Coming soon…. Accidental
salt snobbery. Where is this trend
coming from?
greetings from coffee lovers
ReplyDeletebest,
ruanguji