Next month, I will try my first roasts, thanks to a Sweet Maria's Gift Cert from my sweetie.

I am getting a sampler, and I also want to try the aged Sumatra. Last, but not least, I am terribly curious about that crazy oversize Indian Liberica bean with the occasional overtone of "barnyard".

At $17, I don't want to waste it.

Is it tough to roast? Is it WORTH roasting- anyone tasted this stuff?

I'll be using a pocporn popper.


Comments?


~tMb

I found it absolutely foul, whether at City+ for FC+...and three of my colleagues felt the same way. Tastes like a barnyard smells, particularly if goats are about. Not even worth the try to said that you've tried it.

Now, if any more of the Jacu bird coffee comes in, give that a go. It was mellow, not ashy even at a darker roast, and well-balanced. Also, I see that these will be your first roasts, so I'd suggest some hard beans--Guatemalans, Salvadoreans, Colombians. I had more success with these when I was starting out than I did with the softer beans.

Cheers,
Paul

LOL, thank you, Paul. I actually got to try it gratis, and did not regret it.

Draino, over on Coffeegeek, was kind enough to send me a sample he home-roasted. This is absolutely a "cupper's coffee". It's not something you'd want to wake up to every day, but the aromatic complexity is just astounding.

Jan 15: My roast last night for the 2nd attempt was also 150 gms, roasted to 470 F and well into 2nd crack, 12:30 roast time, with the same profile, with the last step set to 400 F for the remainder of the roast. This gives me an oily, Vienna type roast with Monkey, but was more of a FC+ roast with a little sheen and a few spots of oil. Brewed in a standard fashion on a Melitta drip with 4 TBS to ~24 oz water on a grind of 25 on Rocky. The taste: the color is a nice dark roast cup, the aroma is more traditional with a much more muted grassiness and now I notice the wet cow pie odor (though I don't discount the power of suggestion), the flavor is slightly charred with a much less pronounced medicinal taste, I can't (for the life of me) name the taste, but seems like weird spice. Not an enjoyable cup. My wife took a wiff of the brew and responded "noxious".

The sample I cupped was roasted by Dave, as he described above, to 470F. It was roasted Jan 14th, about 5 weeks ago. Nonetheless the aromatics were lively, and many flavors were pronounced. I can easily imagine that this coffee might have been shockingly intense, maybe even unbearable, shortly after the roast.

On to the cupping notes:



Dry Whole Beans: Wild! Faint aroma of chocolate, dried animal hide, bleu cheese and earth, with a hint of poop and blueberries.

Fresh Ground: Blueberries absolutely leap out at first whiff, along with scents of earth, toast, and an almost floral fermented note that reminded me again of bleu cheese.

On breaking the crust, the scent is deep and earthy, with a hint of grassiness.



At first sip, while still extremely hot, the first flavor to emerge was bitter walnut, followed by dark chocolate. Subsequent small sips revealed "high malt" like one finds in a chuao chocolate, and very light smoky acridity. The body was ample, and the acidity extremely low. There wasn't even a hint of brightness to the cup.

At drinking temperature, the bleu cheese reasserted itself, balanced by walnut and chocolate, and hints of a guava-like fruitiness, but still without any tang whatsoever. The finish was exceptional, lasting close to 20 seconds and retaining smooth dark chocolate without the cheesiness.

Midway through the cup, a note of turned-earth and compost was present, and the chocolates began to mellow.

Once lukewarm, the walnut flavor morphed to filbert, and the cheese developed into something similar to ranch dressing, but without the spices. A berry-like acidity emerged and harmonized with the chocolate to create a flavor similar to Madagascar chocolate, as it might taste if one ate a square immediately after swallowing a Cool Ranch Dorito. --edit--This is not a bad thing, again, you have to imagine the Dorito without the spices and without that extreme tanginess. The flavors balance out.

Several minutes after the last sip, the chocolates faded entirely, leaving a fruity guava aftertaste (this, by the way, was the first time that the guava flavor was so clear that I realized it was the "mystery flavor" in the cup).



I also decanted a small amount and tried it with milk and sugar. This coffee would do nicely in a cafe au lait. Sugar brightens it a bit, and milk tames it, rounding out the flavors, concealing the cheese, and bringing out the nuttiness.


Despite the cacophony in the cup, brewing a single portion of this coffee did not make my house stink, as I feared it might. There was only a light fragrance of "coffee", recognizable, but somehow unusual.



I would not want this coffee for breakfast. I would not want it with dessert. I would not want it on a plane, I would not want it on a train... Okay, let me be serious. I would want it with a tasting menu, or after a good lunch, when I could linger over its complexities.

One final note- the "high malt" flavor that I got on one sip -and just one sip- is an extremely desirable gustatory attribute. Chuao, the chocolate varietal which features this flavor, commands some of the highest prices on the market. You also find it in Sam Adams $300-a-bottle artisan brew, Utopia.

If a roaster could target that flavor along with the chocolate and berry, and bring it to the forefront, perhaps in an espresso shot, the result could be amazingly good. Of course, you'd have to find a way to tame the cheese.



~tMb

-Note- Originally posted on CG, thought it might be helpful to someone over here, too.