I’ve been asked to share a story of my hobby, so here goes…
I never drank coffee growing up and even through 4 years in the Marines, I never drank coffee.
In 1996 my grandmother passed away in Greensboro NC. My family gathered for her funeral, and due to limited space from family coming in for the funeral, I stayed with my grandparents’ next-door neighbor, Jim Carson. Jim was a self-described “non-professional chef”.
He made coffee for everyone staying over. And for some reason on this particular occasion, I decided to have some. It was wonderful. I asked about his process and learned that he used Eight O’Clock coffee beans and real cream. He would grind the beans just before brewing the coffee…and that was it, I was hooked. I adopted his method and for years considered myself quite the connoisseur based on my “high” standards.
Little did I know my so-called “coffee snobbery” was just beginner level.
Fast forward a decade or so and I am working as a contract employee at Defense Contract Management Agency. I’m having a discussion on coffee with a group of guys I work with, and I reveal my process, thinking that I would win the prize (lol). One particular fellow looked singularly UN-impressed and says to me, “If you really want to UP your coffee game, you have to roast your own. It’s no small difference, it’s a punch in the mouth difference.”
Naturally, I couldn’t resist!
I picked his brain about his process, but I couldn’t afford the high dollar roaster he had so I set to find a poor man’s alternative. In my research I read of some dedicated home coffee roasters using hot air popcorn poppers for their beans, so I started frequenting local thrift shops for the specific poppers that had the right wattage and specs and happened to find one.
He wasn’t kidding. I was blown away by how much better the fresh roasted coffee tasted. It was a punch in the mouth difference! From then on, store bought coffee just tasted stale to me.
Meanwhile, while all of this is going on, my coffee tolerance was growing stronger. I still only drank one cup a day but it needed to be stronger and stronger. (And by stronger, I mean the ratio of grounded coffee per ounce as opposed to the Starbucks definition of “strong”, which is taking cheap beans and burning them shiny black.) Requiring me to roast more and more frequently.
While my popcorn popper was working just fine, it didn’t produce a lot of coffee. So I bought several of the hot air poppers and even a “genie” roaster and was trying to manage several roasters simultaneously. Finally, I discovered a Behmor coffee roaster, which could roast a full pound of beans per session. I found a used one and made friends with the service tech at Behmor who helped me out with parts. Over the last 15 years or so, I am limping along on my 3rd used Behmor.
Several years ago , my neighbor jokingly mocked my obsession with roasting and said he was just fine with his Folgers. Not thinking it through, I sent him home with some fresh roasted coffee and sure enough he was back the next day begging me to roast for him too. I may have won the battle, but lost I the war! I had to double my roast amounts for “winning” that one.
A few things I’ve learned along the way…
Don’t roast your own coffee! No other coffee ever seems good enough. Any trip I go on I have to pack my whole coffee rig ☹
Don’t try and convince anyone else how good it is or you might become their DEALER!
And… I would do it all over again! I hear Guatemala has good coffee…
Written by: John Baber