first taste done today, blue berry, floral notes, definitely some french cheese in there, smooth sweetness but with enough acidity, light to medium body and nice aftertaste.

Not there yet on my latest Ethiopian roast, shown above. It's too caramelized. I'll need to go faster in ramp with shorter time in 1C.

A question I have been having on my mind is: what is origin flavor? The blueberry we get in Ethiopians, does every Ethiopian have it? Are there other flavors to be uncovered....or is it the result of fully developing the "fruit" of the seed.

Forgive me if this is an obvious answer. I don't think every coffee of similar origin and processing method has the same flavors. But with an Ethiopian natural, I expect "origin flavors" to include fruits and flowers. These obviously must come from the coffee itself, not from the roasting process, so they would be flavors originating in the bean that has been picked when ripe and processed with care, whether via dry process or washed. I have tasted some properly roasted Ethiopians that are "blueberry bombs," and others that taste of lavender, hibiscus, raspberry, among other flavors without a hint of blueberry.

agree with Gary, I've had a few Ethiopian blueberry bombs and some without any hint of it, recently I had a Salvadorian coffee with some blueberry in it.

I made another attempt today, with ambient temperature at around 50°F and moderate rain. I chewed a bean out of the tray and it was very sweet, not grassy, and without any roastiness. I was aiming for a faster dry and ramp and dropped sooner into 1C. I was tempted to try again with a faster ramp but don't have much of this coffee left, so I'll wait to taste this one, first.

Update 11/16: I ground the coffee and brewed it a half hour later so it would have adequate time to be exposed to air 7 days post roast. This is a sweet, fully developed roast. As the cups cools there are no "off" flavors. The fruit notes are more subtle than I would like, so I want to preserve more acidity. I may try a lower charge temp, which will make for a longer drying stage, which may preserve more of the fruit and sugars on the bean surface. Also I may shorten the ramp, and pay less attention to the absolutely steadily declining ROR, as noted in a later post in this thread where I looked over a 2016 Roast and Learn Together.

I love this kind of chat.

Anyway I have been roasting Ethiopian naturals for a while and even though the online description makes them all sounds "fruity" they are so different. I would have to say that the one I now compare all other "fruity" Ethiopians too is the Halo Bariti from Royal.

https://royalcoffee.com/product/cj1307/

This is truly amazing and tastes and smells of strawberries. Add milk (flat white) and you have a strawberry milkshake.

My roast profile was a classic declining RoR (using a 1kg bullet R1).

Drop temp on the med/high side
Start with med/high power, low fan
Turing point about 1.30min
Step power down to med by FC
Step fan up to med by FC
FC at 9min
drop at 10.30min
Dev % around 15 %.

In general I find that dropping at 1.30 after FC works really well for a light-med roast for espresso machine. On a natural I try to drop a little earlier at about 1.15min but it really depends on the bean.

I really try to extend the time between yellow and FC to retain the fruits and create sweetness while still dropping the beans around 11-13 mins.

If I want more chocolate then I may drop 1.45-2min after FC. But you will lose a little bit more of the origin flavors.

So in general terms do folks think that extending the browning stage (yellow to FC) will allow for the maximum fruit flavor retention in the bean?

That's my method but it always nice to see how others are doing it

Years ago I read someone (chang00? I don't really recall) advise a 7 minute dry with a three minute ramp to first crack. I've found this works really well for me over the last few years.

Interesting. This sounds similar to some of my old air roaster profiles. My old DIY air roaster was inconsistent as hell and resulted in some incredibly unbalanced roasts, but the one thing it always managed to do was bring out heavy fruit tones, almost to a fault.

This just brings me back to something I've been mulling ever since I made the switch... I wonder if you could mimic this in a drum roaster with a low-ish charge temp, high drum and fan speed, and blasting the beans with high heat.