Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Coffee

I am definitely going to spoil myself with some good coffee. I just won a West Bend Poppery II hot air popcorn popper on EBay, which I'm going to use to roast green coffee beans. This is a highly recommended brand of popcorn popper for this purpose and they are no longer manufactured. I also ordered some green coffee beans from Sweet Maria's. They have a sampler pack of 8 coffees from 4 continents. I requested decaf for half of them, so Suzette can enjoy them too. I can't wait to roast my own coffee!

The main purposes for roasting your own coffee beans are:
  • You can buy exactly the coffee beans that you want. Different beans have really different flavors. Most people don't know that because most coffee is overroasted and they all taste the same.
  • You can roast exactly the amount that you like. You might like a lighter or a darker roast.
  • It is fresher. As soon as the coffee is roasted or ground, it loses freshness. You should use roasted coffee beans within 1 week. So this is almost the only way to get really fresh coffee. Green coffee beans are fresh for up to a year.
  • It doesn't need anything added. You can drink it black.
  • It's reasonably priced. The coffee is $5-6 per pound online. Even considering shipping costs, this coffee is cheaper than the Papanicholas coffee that I like (5.99 per 12 oz on sale).
Thanks (or blame) to Rob W. and Russ M. from work for putting me onto really good coffee!

- schneid

2 comments:

Cha Ron said...

Please tell me you're not going to go to all that trouble and then camouflage it with cream and sugar - or gasp - with sweetner...

Ooo...how about some of that hazlenut flavored coffee mate? (bleah!!)

schneid said...

I love that stuff! Yum. And I like a big cup of Starbuck's as much as anyone. But it's not the same thing as having a really good cup of black coffee made with awesome coffee beans. Really, it's two entirely different experiences.

But the whole purpose of switching to really awesome coffee, for me, is to skip the cream and sweetener. Plus I would just like to drink good coffee.

- schneid