Roasting: Outliers

Green (unroasted) coffee.

Haymarket House has a gas stove, so one of the first things I did upon arrival was to order some green (unroasted coffee). Gas stoves are much better than electric stoves when it comes to temperature control, and temperature control is essential for a good roast.

This post isn't the place to go into all that roasting coffee entails (for that, check here), but I will provide some tasting notes. All of the coffees that I ordered are unusual in some way or another, and roasting well (as I feel I did) them marks a new threshold in my roasting abilities.

Aged Sumatra Aceh

This is the most exotic of the coffees in the lot that I ordered. It was harvested in 2007, and sat in a dark warehouse until recently. Aging coffee is unusual: since it often results in a dulled flavor, few people are eager to produce it (plus, you tie up your warehouse for a few years holding perfectly sellable coffee). I am still not certain how folks go about aging coffees in such a way as to market them as "aged coffee." What I do know is that this method is only common in Sumatra. I roasted it twice, both times to a medium-dark profile, and it didn't disappoint. Spicy, musky and wood (cedar!) notes dominated over a silky body.

Brazil Modgliani Peaberry Natural Process

Two things make this coffee stand out from other coffees from Brazil (land of otherwise unremarkable coffee): every bean is a peaberry -- little round beans that roll differently in the roaster; and the beans were processed via the "natural process" -- the coffee fruit was removed after (rather than before) the beans were laid out in the sun to dry. Counter Culture Coffee is currently offering a natural process Ethiopian coffee which shines with blueberry and raspberry notes. This coffee was not nearly as dramatic. The fruit notes were there, over a complex, full body, but I was a little disappointed. My roasting error, probably. I'll be seeking out more natural process coffees as my roasting improves, and I still have some left to roast.

Ethiopia Yirga Cheffe Grade 1

This one was a bit of a splurge, but totally worth it. As with most of these coffees, I made two separate roasts (I get a pound at a time, and my roaster maxes out at 8oz.). The first one was very surprising: a very light body, tons of tea and lemongrass flavors. One of my housemates took a sip and thought that it WAS tea. These are the classic signs of underroasting, so in my second roast, I used less heat, but for longer time. The tea-like flavors returned, this time backed up by the floral sweetness that Yirgacheffe fans love. I hit the nail on the head with this one, I'm proud to report.

Yemen Mokha Ismaili

Mocha (Moka, Mokha, etc.) is the port that first shipped coffee to the West. People there were confused, and really into drinking hot chocolate at the time, and so Mocha is (sort of) responsible for the name of the drink that people order at coffeeshop when they want espresso mixed with chocolate

What made this coffee unusual was the instructions to "let rest three days before drinking." Most coffees are allowed to rest (left in an open container to allow CO2 to escape) for 12-24 hours immediately after roasting, before being sealed. I still don't know why this coffee must rest for so long, but I tried my first batch (a medium roast with notes of fig and chocolate in the cup) and it was delicious. The second batch is waiting its three days, so I'll report back once I've tasted it.