Trlstanc's Profile

It's nice to see a roaster that includes that much info on all of their coffees - not only the basics like where they're grown, but also the process, how it was stored, ect.

Although why anyone would include a bag labeled as "organic french roast" in a promo photo is beyound me, that might as well say "organic, burnt to a crisp"

You can get surprisingly good results roasting coffee like this at home. In fact, if you go in to a Whole Foods, or other similiar store that roasts some of their coffee on site you'll probably see a giant air roaster in there, which is basically just a bigger version of your home popcorn popper.

In fact, you might even get better coffee out of a popper because the WFs employees probably just throw a few pounds in, set a time and walk away. If you watch the roast you can learn what the different levels look and smell like, and stop it where it tastes best to you.

Plus, fresh roasted (and fresh ground) coffee is in a whole different league than stale coffee (anything more than a couple weeks old).

The one huge advantage home roasted coffee beans has is that you know they're fresh roasted, and the difference between any fresh roasted coffee and stale coffee (anything more than 2-3 weeks past roast) is night and day. There are tons (most? a vast majority?) of beans out there that were roasted well and then sit in bags for months before they even end up on the shelf, nevermind back in your kitchen. If you don't when the coffee was roasted it's almost impossible to get a great cup of out of it.

The cost of home roasting can be high, but it doesn't have to be, you can roast on the stove top for practically free, or buy a used popcorn popper or breadmachine (and heat gun) at the thrift store for a few bucks. But it will still take a ton of practice and experimentation to be able to roast 1/2 as well as the really great artisan roasters out there.

Which is fine because you can get fresh roasted beans, from some of the best farms in the world, fair trade, shade grown, ect. from some of the best roasters in the business shipped to your door for a couple bucks more a pound than what you find in the groccery store (or at starbucks). And most cities have a roaster or two that is good or even great, they might be right in your neighborhood. In fact if you're buying more than a pound or two, you might even be able to get artisan beans from a small roaster cheaper than what it costs to buy some starbucks.

I go through about a pound of coffee a week, and I'd guess that 90% of that is bought online. I do roast a little bit, but that's more for fun, or to try out coffees that you can't get roasted for whatever reason.

The biggest advantage to making coffee at home is that you can buy really good beans. The beans that starbucks or any other chain is using are probably cheap, burnt and stale. But for a fraction of the price of a cup of coffee at some mediocre cafe you can buy some of the best beans available anywhere. There are tons of great artisan roasters online, both big and small, and they're roasting top quality beans from all around the world. And they'll show up on your doorstep in a couple days, when they're still fresh (use them within 2 weeks). There might even be some good roasters in your city.

Then you can brew whatever kind of coffee you want, press pot, drip, pour over, chemex, espresso, etc. You don't need to spend a lot on a machine, but expect to spend some money on a quality grinder (none of those spiny blade things). A good burr grinder will probably cost at least $200 - 500 depending on the quality of the burrs, and how adjustable it is (think of it as 2-5 months of daily lattes at SB). Baratza is making some really good grinders, almost commercial quality, for the home.

With good beans and a good grinder you can really taste the coffee, and maybe not even want to cover it up with milk and sugar. Although making a tasty machiatto is a real treat.

The only reason $10 seems high is because we're so used to being able to buy tons of cheap stuff at Target for a fraction of the price. On the other hand, $10 for a well designed tool you could use for the rest of your life (even when you're just cooking at home) seems like quite a deal.

I think the last line is the most important, the instruction to "Repeat as necessary until hunger abates or until you run out of pickles." Perfect!

It would be great to compare the two (and maybe one or two more common brands) in a blind tasting. In fact anytime there's an option between buying a commodity or premium product (chocolate, coffee, alcohol, salt, etc.) it's always interesting to see how they stack up when people don't know what they're tasting.

Also, the geeky side of me would love to see if it's possible to see what else is in the bottles thats giving the two suck distinctive tastes. Traditionally vodka is a 2:3 ratio of ethanol to water, with any differences coming down to impurities that are left after the distilation and filtration. Is it just a differance in the amount of ethanol, or is Purity's distalition really that much better than triple filtration?

Something I heard about recently is that we have our taste buds for sweet react to only 1 thing (sugars) and it's the same for salty and sour, but that our bitter taste buds react to lots (potentially hundreds) of different compounds, and so our taste for bitter things can be a lot more complex than other tastes. Also, there's a lot of variation in how people taste bitterness, some people genetically think some veggies (like broccoli) are very bitter, while others taste them as being relatively bland, and a lot of people fall somewhere in between.

But what if you wanted to get some food at a vending machine that can bite back?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/10/27/130872160/

I don't think I would ever buy an espresso machine that only uses a single brand of pods. What happens if you find out you really like espresso and want to try out some better beans (really, anything would be better then what comes out of the pods).

For less money then the "Gaggia for Illy" you can buy a Gaggia Pure, which is the latest in their long line of excelent entry level espresso machines. It's got a real 58mm portafilter, a giant chrome plated brass brew group, and a decent boiler with a good heater and pump. Pretty much all the stuff you need to brew real espresso, but in a smaller package.

Plus it can use real double or single baskets (like they use in cafes) if you want to grind your own beans, or it has an adapter to use pods if you would rather go for convenience over taste.

So, you can either pay $300 for a Gaggia machine that only brews with pods (and only one kind of pod) or you can pay $250 for a Gaggia machine that will brew real espresso or use pods - seems like a simple choice.