It had been a long day before starting. Predawn bike ride up and down the town for an hour burning a breakfast I had not yet had. A mile walk after sunrise. Some cleaning, some baking, and some more cleaning.
I remembered that I was running quite low on coffee.
I’m extremely fussy about the coffee I drink. I roast my own beans and while it sounds over the top and OCD and just strange, it isn’t. It was the only way people could drink coffee for centuries until large companies realized they could sell beans that were mediocre already ground or excellent beans that became mediocre by the time they made it to cup.
A helpful hint, don’t drink preground coffee, and if you have a grinder, use it. In fact only grind what you will drink now. There’s a marked improvement in taste.
I hit lunch hour and decided “after” I would roast.
May as well, it is the hottest day so far. In fact it’s really too hot to do much else but indoor activities.
So, lets multitask!
I got the coffee roasting popcorn popper out from its place in the pantry, my unroasted Decaf, unroasted Regular, and got started.
I have been roasting coffee since 2009 so I have this down to a science. I do it by ear. Luckily I have headphones that lessen the ear’s impact. The popcorn popper is loud!
It does not have to be a specific brand although they swore on the West Bend Poppery II. The one I have is from a thrift store, has a cracked top, is discolored by use. Never mind all that, it works like a charm although it took two hours to roast four Mason jars worth of the stuff. Two regular, two decaf. I prefer my Regular Coffee before a workout, however since I workout every day of the week, the standard here is half-caff. A very good half-caff nonetheless, but still not Jet Fuel.
As a result when I am on a particularly aggressive workout schedule for that day, I can use the coffee for that lift it promises, and get 10% more speed and distance. Free Endorphins? Absolutely!
So save it for when you need it.
Why bother? Why not! It’s the difference between hearing you favorite song on a scratchy AM/MW station and hearing that same song performed live or on a CD. Orders of magnitude better.
It makes the neighborhood smell nice, like when I was growing up in my little part of NJ near the coffee roasters off I-295. Even if it does make the air conditioner less efficient, our stove hood will pull air from house and make the place warmer. But it will pull all that smoke outside so you don’t have to be there in the heat.
When you roast coffee, the beans expand, crack, expand more, crack again. I stop just after that first crack.
While you are waiting for the roughly 4 to 5 minutes to get there, you have time to do other things. I cleaned the oven and the toaster oven, mopped the floors, and vacuumed the house in the two hours it took to get all this done.
Weirdly, my shoes grip the floor differently so I guess it’s overdue.
I should jump in the shower, after all you always end up smelling like coffee after a good roasting session. I’m not because I’m grilling a steak for dinner.
Sometimes a guy just have to convert some raw meat into food.
You can’t do that without ending up with a few singed arm hairs and picking up a little more food-cologne.
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