Home Coffee Roast - Zimbabwe AA -Dandoni Estate

Ok. This my first post of my actual home roasted coffee. I've been home roasting by using a heat gun and pot method for about 2 months. Read my original home roasting post here <--. Sweet Maria's Zimbabwe AA -Dandoni Estate I started with 3/4 cup of green beans and placed them in my pot. This is a photo of the beans before roasting. Be sure to have a cooling tray prepped before starting the roast. Here are the beans at about 5 minutes into the roast. Slightly browning at this stage. This is near 10 minutes into the roast. It looks like it's getting darker faster than other beans I have roasted. Here are the beans on the cooling tray after about 14 minutes of roast. The suggestion is "at Full City; A balanced coffee, caramelly with rustic hints, herbal, sage, tarry sweetness, slight citrus". I think I may have it roasted a bit more to a Full City + Roast. For a description of roasting levels <-- visit SweetMarias.com. Cupping my Zimbabwe AA -Dandoni Estate Full City + Home Roast. OK! For the interest of full disclosure, I am using a non-recommended, inexpensive Proctor-Silex blade type grinder. (That's my Realtor trait showing...) Anyway all the experts seem to recommend getting the best (priciest) burr type grinder you can afford. Not that this $12 one is the best I can afford, but it is what I desire to afford right now. I'm going to make this first sample cup using a coffee press. This requires a coarse grind. Here is a close up of my grind. Here is the boiling water poured into the coffee press with about 2 tablespoons of ground coffee. I have poured the extra boiling water into my coffee mug to heat my mug. The first documented roast is now being poured into the heated mug after about 3-4 minutes of steeping. Mmmmm...! Delicious! ;p It has a nice "balanced coffee" flavor, just like described by Sweet Maria's <-- visit SweetMarias.com. I can make out the "caramelly" flavor (I think). Anyway, enough of that fancy mumble jumble. Basically, I like it! Normally I make the first cup of my roast using the coffee press and drink it hot. I always drink my coffee black and unsweetened. (More disclosures.) My preferred coffee drink is a good iced espresso or iced americano. It depends on who made it. I am finding it difficult to get a consistent, great tasting iced espresso or iced americano. It frustrates me. You can read about my issues with Maui McDonald's "Premium Coffee" in my Maui post <--here. Anyway, that's not espresso, but that's just bad tasting. I normally make my coffee using a espresso pot and then I cool the espresso a bit before pouring it over ice. I'm trying to perfect this, but I think I need a better espresso pot or quality espresso machine before I can perfect this any more. I'll post more on this in a the future. Thanks for reading!

Related Links: Brasil FTO Poco Fundo Full City Roast, 1st Home Roasting Post, *This Post* Zimbabwe AA -Dandoni Estate Full City + Roast, CoffeeGeek.com, Sweet Maria's Coffee, Sweet Maria's Roasting Guide.