Hi

I'm a prospective home roaster currently seeking for a deal on either the Behmor or the Gene Cafe. A deal from bellabarista.co.uk includes 18Kg of green beans for something like $50 extra - which seems like a good deal. They can also be bought separately for about $130 - which I will consider if I go for another roaster than the Gene in this specific deal. I have however no idea whether these are a good starting point for a home roaster.

I'm mainly interested in finding out whether these are regarded beans of good quality - not so much subjective opinions on how good they taste (or not). It does not make sense to have 18kg of mediocre beans, but it makes sense to try out a variety of what is regarded quality coffees so that I can learn something.

The beans are as follows:

Costa Rica Tarrazu San Rafael (2KG Bag)
Kalossi G1 (2KG Bag)
Indian Monsoon Malabar (2KG Bag)
Brazil Yellow Bourbon Rainha Est (2KG Bag)
Brazil fully washed Fazanda (2KG Bag)
Ethiopian Harrar Longberry (2KG Bag)
Nicuraguan aaa Scr 19 (2KG Bag)
Bolivian Primero Extra (2KG Bag)
Indian Balmaadi Est (2KG Bag)

Your insights are much appreciated.

JohnnyBean wrote:I'm mainly interested in finding out whether these are regarded beans of good quality - not so much subjective opinions on how good they taste (or not).

??!! A little primer:

-- From a given area, beans come in roughly 3 specialty coffee rungs (I'm not counting the commodity coffees): 1. from single estates, including auction and micro-lots. 2. Below that are lots put together by high end importers prepped to a high standard. 3. Below that are generic lots with generic preps. They are acceptable as specialty coffee in terms of few enough defective beans. The coffees in groups 1 and 2 have reputations and command premium prices. The coffees in 3 have no reputation and come at regular supply and demand prices. You can probably guess where every coffee in your list is, given that they are promotions with a roaster purchase.

-- How good all the coffees from a given region taste varies year by year. The price and quality is established by tasters who have lots of experience with these coffees. One can basically equate the quality of a coffee with how good it tastes to the relevant expert community.

Now after all this preliminary drivel. I haven't tasted any of these particular coffees; probably nobody outside the UK has. On the whole, Sumatra & Nicaragua are good this year, and Brazil and Harar mediocre. Not sure about the rest.

Think of these give away beans as a chance to learn how to roast. My advice is to start by learning how to do light roasts, and tasting the results brewed (see the FAQs). There is no faster way of becoming a good roaster, and your results for espresso will be hit or miss until you've become one. However, nobody ever takes this bit of advice. I certainly didn't when I started out. So do what you are probably inclined to do, create a random blend, do a random roast that ends somewhere in the 2nd crack, and enjoy.

another_jim wrote:My advice is to start by learning how to do light roasts, and tasting the results brewed (see the FAQs). There is no faster way of becoming a good roaster, and your results for espresso will be hit or miss until you've become one. However, nobody ever takes this bit of advice.

Actually, I took that advice. It's going pretty well so far. Thanks!


Plan on the first few batches going wrong and giving you lots of experience - with that it mind, there's no sense in starting with (and screwing up) an exotic like Kona or JBM. Mundane coffee works pretty well for learning, and even tastes pretty good when it's fresh.

For learning, something reasonably fresh of consistent size that isn't flawed is perfect.

Thanks a lot Jim, just what I needed. The statement you quoted from my original post might seem weird ... I just meant that a bean could probably be regarded of having certain level of quality even though it does not meet a ramdom persons preferences of taste. If these were beans that nobody else would touch at all for some reason then I would not get them.

I had planned to try roasting both for french/drip and for espresso. I will take your advice not to rush the darker roasts though. I had however not considered making blends yet - it does not make sense to start blending until I know what I'm blending and why - what I mean is that it should be more than complex enough to taste a single bean for now.

We'll see what I will do. Haven't decided on the roaster yet either. It's hard

Again, thanks for your input.