peacecup wrote:As in years of experience, often handed down through generations in Italy.

Um. Modern espresso dates from the 1950s. All the major Italian roasters you will be able to buy outside Italy date from then. There's more "generational experience" in Folger's, and a lot more in Maxwell House, than in Segafredo. Now there are are a few places in Salerno that roast for the Camorra brass; but that's a different story entirely.

On the other hand, Australians had their dream time, and we have our marketing romances.

Yes, Jim, but we don't all drink modern espresso, and you know much better than I that the Italians have been blending and roasting for espresso for 100 years. If you care to ignore time, and the assimilation of knowledge that comes with it, as a factor, feel free. My point was simple, that roasting is an art, and that it takes a lot of experience, and a necessary degree of talent, to produce anything that tastes very good. This includes food, wine, etc.

I remember the "microbrew" craze the hit N. America when I was in college. To my taste very few of the very many nicely-decorated bottles contained anything like real beer, which takes years of experience to master (as in brewmeister). Then everyone started brewing beer at home. I made a few bad batches myself. I equate the expansion of microroasters to that of the microbrewers, and home roasters to home brewers.

Italians are generally recognized as being among the best at making Italian food. Espresso is Italian. They roast good (I won't say great, because I'm no coffee cupper) espresso.

PC

Ken wrote

The analogy to wine is obvious; "it's the beans, stupid," just like "it's the grapes, stupid" in fine wine production. If you don't get the best beans you are not going to produce the best coffee, and I don't care what sort of roasting skills or equipment you have. The best beans are produced in the coffee farms, and if you don't seek them out at origin, you don't get them. This is where high end American roasters excel, with their sourcing of green beans, and it is simply way too much of an advantage for any level of roasting skill in Italy to surmount.

It would be silly of me to argue against this. But the best grapes can also make very tasty vinegar (again the analogy is obvious). I, for one, would end up with vinegar, just like I ended up with bad beer. So I prefer to buy espresso. Whether it is the design of the roaster, or their skills, I have often been dissapointed with the flavors I get from fresh, specialty roasted espresso beans. Perhaps this is just my preference for the "uninteresting", but I tend to like more simple flavor profiles.

I do have a proposition, however. If you would be kind enough to mail me a few ounces of a few of your SO coffees, I would be happy to pay for shipping, bean costs, time.

PC

peacecup wrote:Ken wrote


It would be silly of me to argue against this. But the best grapes can also make very tasty vinegar (again the analogy is obvious). I, for one, would end up with vinegar, just like I ended up with bad beer. So I prefer to buy espresso. Whether it is the design of the roaster, or their skills, I have often been dissapointed with the flavors I get from fresh, specialty roasted espresso beans. Perhaps this is just my preference for the "uninteresting", but I tend to like more simple flavor profiles.

I do have a proposition, however. If you would be kind enough to mail me a few ounces of a few of your SO coffees, I would be happy to pay for shipping, bean costs, time.

PC

Hi,

The problem would be that if the beans are already roasted, the chance that they would arrive (from the Western US to Sweden) in time to enjoy them at their peak is almost zero, with the time it would take in transit, for customs clearance, etc. Even if the shipping itself did not speed up degassing and aging (and I think that it would) a lot of these coffees tend to be at their best between days 3 and 7 after roasting. Even if you got it on day 6, it would be hard to evaluate on that one day before it goes over the abyss . . . .

If the beans are not already roasted, then you would have to roast them, and the results would be dependent upon your skills as a roaster.

Finally, these beans do not even last long in green form. The African single origin beans I tend to like the best (many of them come from Ethiopia) seem to last at peak form for about 2 or 3 months after they are released and then rapidly they lose their fruitiness, which is a real shame because that is why we buy them. George Howell and others have proposed removing the green beans from their burlap sacks as quickly as possible and then freezing them in nearly airtight bags in a very cold freezer. I have started doing that myself however I don't know how well it will actually work for me, since I don't have long term experience in doing it.

A Canadian roaster, 49th Parallel, states that they do this with all their green coffees (bag them in plastic and freeze them, on arrival).

In summary, if it were to be workable I'd have to send you green beans; I think that sending roasted beans would be a waste of time. Normally, the season for new Ethiopians would be starting around now, however their are political problems in the Ethiopian export trade right now that are making it hard for these coffees to get exported as single varietals. Hopefully these problems will be resolved and it could be possible to source some new ones and then I could send you a couple of samples.

ken

peacecup wrote:Yes, Jim, but we don't all drink modern espresso, and you know much better than I that the Italians have been blending and roasting for espresso for 100 years. If you care to ignore time, and the assimilation of knowledge that comes with it, as a factor, feel free.

My point is that Italian espresso is like Neapolitan pizza, a great way to use the very cheapest of ingredients.

But they had opposite trajectories. Here espresso is made from high end coffees. This can bomb, but the people who have a clue produce far better stuff than in Italy. Pizza, for the most part, became an adulterated, over processed, mass market food here. So you now have the completely hilarious idea (for anyone around in the 60s and 70s.) of "gourmet" DOC Neapolitan pizza, just because those same old cheap ingredients are still real.

Ken Fox wrote:Finally, these beans do not even last long in green form. The African single origin beans I tend to like the best (many of them come from Ethiopia) seem to last at peak form for about 2 or 3 months after they are released and then rapidly they lose their fruitiness, which is a real shame because that is why we buy them. George Howell and others have proposed removing the green beans from their burlap sacks as quickly as possible and then freezing them in nearly airtight bags in a very cold freezer. I have started doing that myself however I don't know how well it will actually work for me, since I don't have long term experience in doing it.

A Canadian roaster, 49th Parallel, states that they do this with all their green coffees (bag them in plastic and freeze them, on arrival).

I recently attended an open house at Terroir which included a tour, slide show/lecture & cupping. Along with vac bagging & freezing his premium green beans in smaller lots upon arrival George has convinced many of his suppliers to ship the greens vac bagged instead of in burlap sacks. George talked at length about the long term benifits of vac bagging & freezing over the traditional methods of greens storage. I've only been home roasting for 6 months so no personal long term experience but its hard to imagine that this wouldn't be a better storage method then letting the beans slowly dry out in porous bags..

The pizza analogy is a good one. My grandparents and parents always made their own, and I still do today. Generational knowledge...

Fortunately I grew up where pizza is thin-crusted, and there was, and still is, a "real" pizza shop on every other corner. I visited a "neo" pizza shop in Seattle, however, where they source their flour, tomats, etc. from Italy, and actually go there to get trained. The pizza was very average, but fortunately I was able wash it down with an espresso (the beans for which they also, fortunately, source from Italy), pulled on a Victoria Arduino 3-group lever machine.

another_jim wrote:My point is that Italian espresso is like Neapolitan pizza, a great way to use the very cheapest of ingredients.

This has been my impression of a lot of Italian cuisine. Toasted bread crumbs and polenta spring to mind as other examples.

Ya know, I hate to be a pain in the ass but saying that you can't get a good Pizza outside of Italy is kind of like saying that you can't get a good PBJ outside of the US, or a good Burrito outside of Mexico. Totally arbitrary IMHO

Well, OK. I admit there are commercial roasts that can/and sometimes do kick my ever lovin' home-roastin' ass.
But on my best days, my roasts please not only me, but those whom I share it with. Now THAT's the key here.
I'm not so sure I want to share that $17 a # (including shipping) professional roast, but I'l dang sure share my nearly as good, much better than Costco/Whole Foods/Super Market/Starbucks $6 a # home roast with whomever would like some.
For me, THAT's the ticket.