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.

Honolulu, Hawaii's 25th Anniversary Okinawan Festival 8/31/07-9/02/07

We walked to Kapiolani Park on Saturday afternoon to catch a piece of the Okinawan Festival action. This is a big festival that goes on every year for the past 25 years and this is the first time I have ever went... in my life! (Wow!) The picture above shows the crowd. This is just the before the scheduled 6pm "Largest Bon Dance in Hawaii". As you can see, it is quite a large crowd. If you weren't here on Saturday, maybe you were in the other crowd at Aloha Stadium for the 1st U.H. football game of this season.

The festival's entertainment and access is free to the public. There are fundraising booths through out the field that accept scrips or cash for hand crafted products, Okinawan artwork, food and beverages. I purchased $10 of scrips and that was enough to get a yakisoba plate, bottled water and a bunch of andagi. I didn't take any pictures of that stuff, but the andagi was very good. Andagi is an Okinawan donut and one of their most popular traditional foods here in Hawaii. I Googled andagi (<--click for results) and came across this website (<--click) devoted to andagi. The schedules had the food boothes closing at 6pm on Saturday but it turned out most of them stayed open to bring in as much fundraising money as they could. We took a look at the bonsai exhibit. Bonsai is "...the art of aesthetic miniaturization of trees by growing them in containers..." according to Wikipedia's definition. <--click for extensive Wikipedia definition. This was interesting to look at because just last week, Kelli and I enrolled in a "Art of Bonsai" class to take place from 9/18-11/6 every Tuesday evening. It's $95 including 1 plant and being held at Windward Community College. I called their office at (808)235-7433 to enroll. I'll keep you all posted on how these classes turn out. =)

My Home Roasting update...

I have always had a passion to open my own artisan cafe and serve fine espressos, sandwiches and confections. This is still a goal of mine (some day). Until then, I continue to train in the home kitchen.

I ordered an 8 pound variety set of green beans from Sweet Maria's a couple of months ago. I have roasted about a pound total, to date, of 4 of the varieties. I still haven't sampled them all. This blog entry will only be covering the basic ordering and home roasting process. I will have more detailed entries on the results of the roasts in the future as I perfect and experiment with the varieties.

This is the USPS Flat Rate Priority Mail box that I chose as my shipping method from California to Hawaii.

The 8 pound variety pack is priced at $32 and their other shipping method came out to $23.85. I ordered it with that rate and followed up with an e-mail inquiry asking why the "Flat Rate" of $9.95 didn't show up as an option. I received an immediate response acknowledging that I will receive the $9.95 Flat Rate and an apology for the glitch in the ordering process.

The 8 zip lock type bags are each filled with 1 pound of green coffee. Along with a packing invoice was a news letter from Sweet Maria's.

The 8 varieties included in my pack are: Mexico FTO Oaxaca Pluma, Sulawesi Grade One Toraja, Sumatra Classic Mandheling, Rwanda Butare Boubon, Zimbabwe AA Dondoni Estate, Brasil FTO Poco Fundo, Nicaragua Placeras Estate Miel and Guatemala Fraijanes - Finca Aqua Tibia. Visit Sweet Maria's for more information on the varieties and ordering.

A lot of my information on starting my home roasting has come from reading a great website resource called CoffeeGeek.com. It has provided me with great tips and information about making great coffee at home. Eventually, I would like to make great coffee in a cafe, but I have to start somewhere.

Thanks for reading!

Note: Milwaukee 8975-6 Heat Gun was approximatly $79 at Honolulu Home Depot. (Bit over priced, but I was anxious to get started.)

I first read about home roasting coffee beans at CoffeeGeek.com. They explain several techniques to achieve a proper roast. As this picture shows, I decided to go with the hot air gun roast. It's very basic and requires mostly your physical control to get the roast done properly. I followed the directions from CoffeeGeek.com's Forums and Sweet Maria's Home Roasting Basics. With those 2 main resources, I achieved a great roast from the start.

Related Links: Guatemala Fraijanes- Finca Aqua Tibia to Vienna, Sulawesi Grade One Toraja & Rwanda Butare Bourbon, Mexico FTO Oaxaca Pluma - "At City+" & Sumatra Classic Mandheling - "Full City+", Guatemala Fraijanes, Brasil FTO Poco Fundo, 1st Home Roasting Post, Zimbabwe AA -Dandoni Estate Full City + Roast, CoffeeGeek.com, Sweet Maria's Coffee, Sweet Maria's Roasting Guide.