I don't think of myself as a coffee snob, but leaving the SF Bay Area for college in LA, I found that I had a very different idea of what coffee should be. By the time I had returned to the area, many of the great traditional local roasting cafes were being put out of business by chain stores. And, to my disappointment, one of those local roasters, had gone corporate and was creating over-roasted, nasty stuff. What I eventually fell upon was getting locally roasted beans from Peerless in small amounts and shooting for great blends. But really, this is just a semi-solution, since coffee really loses most of its interest after 4 days.
So, let us take a step back at why I had high expectations of coffee.
I grew up in a household with a father who could not stand coffee, and a mother who was a coffee addict raised on government commodity coffee who was suddenly dropped into Beatnik San Francisco and Berkeley. She drank coffee and listened to poets and activists at Caffe Mediterraneum and bought her coffee from Alfred Peet at his newly opened coffee shop. Later, when they moved away from the UC Berkeley campus, she found places like the Coffee Mill, Peerless, and yes, Cost Plus, which was a run-down import place that had a roasting house next door. I remember going to all these places, early on a Saturday morning, with the smell of roasting coffee in the air. Coffee was always same day roasted. At Cost Plus, I remember sitting on sacks of green beans. At Peet's, my mother was an official Peetnik, with a special vacuum can that she'd bring in and Mr. Peet would just fill up for a set price. I even remember going in and listening to them discuss how the last blend was a little to bright, or warm, or whatever it was, so he would pull beans out for us to smell, mix them up, and then grind a small amount and make little tiny taster cups. Yep, I was a pre-schooler having coffee. When we were doing the Oakland run, she'd hit the Coffee Mill for her French roast, Cost Plus for African beans, and then Peerless for some blend she liked there. The Berkeley run was to the Co-Op, which roasted their own beans, then Caffe Mediterraneum for Espresso roast, and Peet's for whatever blend he had thunk up that day. So, I don't think that I was ever a coffee snob, it's just that I didn't know any other way to have coffee.
There is now a bit of a local roasting resurgence, especially in more metropolitan areas. On a big trip last year through rural Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, and Wyoming, we actually found some nice packaged local roasters, but no shops. I hope this will change. I believe that anyone tasting freshly, carefully roasted coffee will never go back. Like so many other foods, prior to the development of mass production and tinning/canning for shipment, coffee was better because every town had a coffee roaster, or a store that would roast your coffee, and in rural America, you roasted your own. 100 years ago your coffee was better than it is today.
After years of trying different roasters, settling on Peerless (they really do some of the best packaged out there, and their tea is just the best for the buck), and then thinking "It just doesn't taste the same." Using some credit card points, I took the plunge and purchased two pounds of Sulawesi White Eagle, and a Fresh Roast SR500.
Today was the day, the coffee arrived yesterday, and the roaster this morning. Something I have noticed is the disappearance of a true medium roast. Every commercial roaster out there has a medium, but it is just not so. My task for today, find a good medium roast. I did two test batches, each of 2 oz. One was a straight 8 minute roast on medium, with a long cooling period, the other was a 6 minute roast on medium with a long cooling and then 2 minutes more with the fan on low. Both yield a nice cup of coffee, but the second method produces an extremely even roast with more character. And yes, these are better than anything I've had packaged, anytime.
The SR500 is an extremely easy roaster to use. Essentially a very high quality air popcorn popper, with control of the time, temperature, and fan speed. I read a plethora of reviews, and every one of them said that this produced smoke. I ran into none of that, but of course I did not roast anything dark. It is also very quick. Make 4 oz. in 8-10 minutes, you'll have enough for 2 people for a few days. By that time, you're ready for another batch and the previous is past its prime anyways. The other bonus, green coffee is much cheaper. For the price you'd pay for roasted coffee, you can get top-notch beans, make it fresh, and it stores green well for at least a few months. If you are thinking of switching, please do.
