Comment freshly roasted, individual cups (Score 1) 592
My 2 cents -
I've been roasting my own coffee for about a year now. Sweet Maria's sells a variety of excellent single sourced green coffee beans in the vicinity of $6/lb by the time you add in shipping. This works out to about the same as consumer grade roasted whole bean coffee (I like Peets) when you figure you lose about 15% of the mass in the roasting process.
I still haven't purchased a roasting machine. I use a Look brand skillet - heavy alumininum clad base for even high temps and a clear lid. I used to use a thermometer to measure the internal temp - now I pretty much know what setting my stove should be on to preheat the pan and just throw the beans in and shake vigorously for 5 minutes or so, then toss in a colander for a minute to cool and de-chaff. I definitely can appreciate the level of coffee I'm getting even with a crude roasting process - drinking fresh stuff is no comparison to month old pre-ground starbucks from somebody's freezer...
The other thing I insist on is brewing just enough. I have a Swiss Gold (~$10) single cup drip filter and now an Aeropress ($25 on amazon.com). Both methods make excellent coffee in small batches - I make up to 4 cups with the Aeropress and put it in my Nissan thermos. This is almost infinitely superior to most office coffee that is made in a cheap drip pot and left to cook for hours! This (to my taste buds and stomach) always leaves an acidic feel to the coffee, even if originally it was pretty good.
The kind of cool thing about coffee (for geeks) is that it's very susceptible to tinkering. Use a pour through drip filter or a chemex and you can precisely monitor the water temp. Roast yourself and learn to tell by smell and color what degree of roast you're getting (and follow instructions on Sweet Maria's site to use an old popcorn popper as your roaster). All this is fun, doesn't cost ridiculous amounts of money, and results in discernibly better coffee (I always get lots of compliments on mine at least...)
I've been roasting my own coffee for about a year now. Sweet Maria's sells a variety of excellent single sourced green coffee beans in the vicinity of $6/lb by the time you add in shipping. This works out to about the same as consumer grade roasted whole bean coffee (I like Peets) when you figure you lose about 15% of the mass in the roasting process.
I still haven't purchased a roasting machine. I use a Look brand skillet - heavy alumininum clad base for even high temps and a clear lid. I used to use a thermometer to measure the internal temp - now I pretty much know what setting my stove should be on to preheat the pan and just throw the beans in and shake vigorously for 5 minutes or so, then toss in a colander for a minute to cool and de-chaff. I definitely can appreciate the level of coffee I'm getting even with a crude roasting process - drinking fresh stuff is no comparison to month old pre-ground starbucks from somebody's freezer...
The other thing I insist on is brewing just enough. I have a Swiss Gold (~$10) single cup drip filter and now an Aeropress ($25 on amazon.com). Both methods make excellent coffee in small batches - I make up to 4 cups with the Aeropress and put it in my Nissan thermos. This is almost infinitely superior to most office coffee that is made in a cheap drip pot and left to cook for hours! This (to my taste buds and stomach) always leaves an acidic feel to the coffee, even if originally it was pretty good.
The kind of cool thing about coffee (for geeks) is that it's very susceptible to tinkering. Use a pour through drip filter or a chemex and you can precisely monitor the water temp. Roast yourself and learn to tell by smell and color what degree of roast you're getting (and follow instructions on Sweet Maria's site to use an old popcorn popper as your roaster). All this is fun, doesn't cost ridiculous amounts of money, and results in discernibly better coffee (I always get lots of compliments on mine at least...)
