I can finally tell that I'm back on a more even keel, as I actually went and made an apple pie this last weekend just for the fun of doing it.

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Bought: For my birthday! :-) By my husband, arrived 10/10/05, bought from Sweet Maria's. I'd asked for a Kenyan coffee, just to see what the fuss is all about for Kenya AAs, but since he knows that I love peaberry coffees he bought it for me instead of one of the AA lots. The smaller berry often seems to equate to denser flavor and smoother qualities for me, though the Sweet Maria's guy says that the shape doesn't change the coffee qualities

Roasted: On Sunday (two days ago), Full City++, as I took it a few rattles into the second crack for a little bit of oil on the surface for both batches.

Brewed: 2 Tablespoons of beans in a whirly grinder. 8 ounces of boiling water (203° at altitude) through an unbleached paper filter.

Character: I love it. This is definitely not my usual bittersweet chocolate and burnt cream cuppa. This thing has bright, lively flavors but without, somehow, tasting at all soured. Grapefruit shading to licorice with a creamy body and quick, citrus finish. Surprised the heck out of me when I could not only drink it without milk, but actually liked it better that way! The scent of the beans confused me until I thought about licorice and spices and a little of citrus rind, like a curl of grapefruit rind in an espresso to cut the richness and balance it just right. With the wait of a couple of days, the body was dense and creamy and had this great coffee platform for the brightness.

Now I can see why some folks don't like Blue Mountain Jamaican coffee as much as this.

I doubt I could drink this all day, but for my single cup of the day it was a huge surprise and pleasure. I think I'll be trying more of the Kenyan coffees.

Rating: 10 of 10

When I make coffee at work I put a rounded 2 tablespoons of coffee beans into my grinder. I gather up the grinder, the filter in its cone holder, my glass measuring cup, and my mug for the results.

I go to the break area, as I don't want to bother the folks around me with the grinder. I then get an exact eight ounces of water out of the coffee maker into my glass measuring cup. I put the cup into the microwave and hit "1" for a one minute heat. The water in the coffee maker isn't nearly hot enough for making good coffee because it usually takes anywhere from 30 seconds to a full minute for the water in the cup to actually boil.

While the water heats I grind the coffee (which I roasted within a week of this venture), and put the grinds into the paper filter. I set the cone on the mug. By this time the water is usually boiling (203° F) in the measuring cup. Since glass is an excellent heat insulator the water usually continues bubbling as I make my way to the filter. It is not superheated or it wouldn't be bubbling. No scalds for me.

I then gradually pour the water through the grounds, often pouring in different spots to push the grinds into the infusion and roughly keep it brewing for about 3-4 minutes. I don't pour all that much at a time.

Amusingly enough, I can taste the difference if I leave any of these steps out (water hot enough, grind right as I'm about to brew, brew for long enough).

When I was done this morning, a guy said, "For all that work, you should have brewed a whole pot." He thought a bit, "Hm. Unless that's the only cup you drink a day. Then it's worth doing to have one great cup of coffee."

Bingo, he got it. It is my only cup of coffee each day, usually. And it's perfect and completely enjoyable to the very bottom of the cup. For me the quality of it was far more important than the quantity or price in my time or my money, and my process showed that. I cannot drink the free coffee off the hot plate of the coffeemaker that doesn't make its water hot enough to actually brew even good coffee.

I realized, recently, that placing my value of quality over my valuation of my time or money or quantity is not something everyone understands. Maybe this will be a good example of how I am the way I am.

... to realize that the mere fact that a coffee or tea is in a paper cup is something I can now taste.

I had to dig around in the common kitchen to find a ceramic cup in order to really enjoy the coffee from the k-cup critter installed there.

Yeesh.

Bought: From Blue Mountain Coffee, before I'd ever heard of Sweet Maria's. Yes, it's at a crazy expensive price at the moment. I think I paid around $35 for the 3 pounds, more than two years ago, rather than the $55 it's now at, but with the hurricanes going through there, the coffee crop for the last couple of years was very badly damaged and diminished.

Mavis Bank is one of the mills that collects coffee from the various growers and does the processing on it. They're the only mill that does it at altitude. They're likely one of the largest, taking in about 40% of the beans produced on the Blue Mountain. Roasted prices for the coffee now go on the order of $40 a pound. I'm actually rather impressed that Sweet Maria's tasted this last year's batch and decided it just wasn't good enough and aren't carrying it at all when the margins are so huge at the moment.

Roasted: This morning, five minutes before I ground and brewed it. I started at the "cool" setting for the FreshRoast and once the beans yellowed, I went to the medium heat setting. Half the beans I did at a City Roast, i.e. just at the end of 1st crack before it goes into second. The second half I did as a Vienna roast, well into 2nd crack so that the oils are on the surface. Having both gives me both roast characteristics and the bean characteristics, what there are of them.

Brewed: SwissGold one cup filter. 2 Tbs beans ground two notches finer than normal drip coffee, about 6 ounces of boiling water (203). At sea level you might want to let the water cool a little from 212 down to about 200.

Yeah. The big question. "Is it worth it?"

It really depends on what you want. Blue Mountain Coffee is smooth, mild, mild, mild, nearly creamy compared to nearly any other coffee. No acid, no bitterness even if roasted nearly to carbon, just smooth coffee flavor. It's got a nice, medium body, great aroma and fragrance both wet and dry, very little prominent acidity, and a very creamy, mild aftertaste or finish.

No flowers, no fruit, no earthy mustiness, no chocolate, no nuts or trees or...

Nearly no flavors other than the central concept of what coffee, alone, is. Completely undistracted, it can be, on one hand, extremely boring, and on the other, the essence of what coffee, alone, should be. Depends on your point of view.

At $10 a pound, pre-roasted, with about a 30% weight loss from roasting, it's quite well worth it. At $40 a pound... for me, it's a "No." I'd rather drink my Papua New Guinea or the Brazilian Cerrados or my Australian Mountain coffees than pay $40 for this. It's very nice, and I enjoy it a great deal, as you can see from my rating and I need to drink this stuff before it gets too much older. But I wouldn't buy more at these prices.

Rating: 9 of 10

Bought: As you'd expect, from Sweet Maria's. Their service is awesome and they do good enough packing of the beans that I think I'm just buying from them for some time to come. My tastes seem to match up with the main buyer's pretty well, so I have really enjoyed what I've gotten from them.

Roasted: 30 seconds into second crack, a solid Vienna roast with oils on the surface and everything.
Brewed: For the last week on the MC40 with a good 20-30 lbs pressure on the pack, at the espresso grind notch of the Solis Maestro.

It's all been good. I'm still getting crema a week after the roast. Most espresso fanatics say that three weeks is too old for good espresso, a week is about the limit. The Vivace only lasted three days for their sweet spot on crema and taste.

This stuff provided lots of crema all week. It's not all sweet, but the bittersweet is more like bittersweet chocolate. Lots of good low notes, great body, sweet aftertaste, no sours but some fruit (blueberry says the nose brain) acids to balance the caramels. No burnt tire or fuel oil tastes, which the Vivace blend would sometimes give. (Yes, I'm mostly comparing this against the Vivace as I've only gone through two or three pounds of espresso since I bought the machine).

The crema production allows me to do my first, rudimentary tries at latte art and it always tastes great in my milk drinks. I haven't had any off tastes or scents from this stuff, and the half a dozen folks I've brewed espresso drinks for have said that they like what I've done with this.

So I'll give it a 9 of 10 for ease of use, texture of the results, and the taste.

Bought: From Coffee Jones, a local roaster. We have an interesting relationship with them as we buy their organic, Fair Trade coffees to sell at the church to do fund raising for a little South American village that grows coffee beans as one of their crops. The whole of the UCC (United Church of Christ, yeah, the denomination that aired those anti-church bouncer ads) has asked its member churches to try and do business, as much as possible, with Fair Trade certified folks.

So we call in an order before Thursday and on Saturday, usually at night, they deliver a big, aromatic brown box filled with one pound sacks of coffee they just roasted. Yum. We usually get the Breakfast Blend and the Dragon Blend for the church. John's main cuppa is the Dragon Blend, so I grab some of his when I don't have time to roast.

Brewed: Boiling water (203) from the microwave over 12 second whirly blade grind in unbleached Melitta paper filter.

More rich and varied than the breakfast blend, more of the caramel and bittersweet chocolate deep notes along with some fruity high notes. There's a good balance of acid and darker roast flavors and a much wider range to it than most blended coffees I've tasted. I enjoy it. There's definitely some of the Indonesian dragons in here, and it tells in the body of the stuff and it coats the tongue fairly well. The aftertaste is creamy and lingers for just a moment.

8 of 10

Bought: 3 months ago, green, from Sweet Maria's. Yeah, they have funny names for their green blends.

Roasted: 20 seconds into second crack, which left it pretty dark, Vienna roast rather than Full City. Aromantic as anything.

Brewed: MC40 with usual prep, ground with the Solis Maestro at the espresso icon.

Decaf green coffee beans are strange critters. They've been processed to get the caffeine out, so they're shriveled up and dark already, so they roast much more quickly than normal beans. Odd little guys.

It roasted up smelling good, and when I brewed it, it has proved impressive for a decaf. Tasty, caramel, earth, and chocolate like bittersweetness, no real high notes, but a good base taste. A little less body than I'd like. Pretty good crema for two days, less after that, so I have to be careful to roast it only when I need it. But to my tastes it still tastes pretty good even after that. It's easy to get to be good, but hard to make great, but I'll take good when I need an evening cup of comfort.

8 of 10 for a decaf. ;-)

Bought from Sweet Marias as part of their four half-pound sampler nearly half a year ago. Finally finished that half pound this roasting.

Roast: 20 seconds into 2nd crack on my little FreshRoast roaster. Done three days ago as I needed drip coffee pretty badly as both milk and roasted espresso had run out and I was tired of spending 20 minutes at the espresso machine for a drink.
Brewed: Drip three days ago (unbleached paper filter, whirly Braun grinder), espresso (Solis Maestro grinder set right on espresso icon) on the MC40 today.

It was surprisingly sweet as espresso. That's the big thing I wanted to remember. Not much crema and not much body, but the taste was wonderful, especially compared to the tempermental Vivace blend. Hints of vanilla and maple (wood caramel?) and surprisingly tasty high notes (pine-like) that weren't sour eventhough they were definitely bright/acid. I had run out of the conventional espresso blends and decided to just try it for fun and I'm glad I did.

I've loved this varietal since I got it. High mountain complexity, lighter than the things I like to roast darker. This is fairly light in body and more acid than most coffees I like. But it's beautifully balanced at the lighter roast. I think of it as being more like a flower when most coffees are nuts or earth or caramels. I can't drink a lot of it alone, feel like I'll float away, but it's a good break from the heavier stuff.

I'll give it an 9 out of 10 compared to a lot of other coffees.

Roasted yesterday, brewed this morning using my little Mr. Coffee MC40.

Bought at Espresso Vivace at their Broadway store.

Brewing: It's damned picky stuff. I have to get everything exactly right, roast (10 seconds into 2nd crack), grind (variable according to the lack of humidity here), tamp (30 pounds) and then I get glorious golden crema to fill the shot glasses and even then it's not exactly sweet compared to other single variatels or other blends, even. If ANY of it's wrong, or even if I brew it anything past three days (high altitude air sucks the oils right out) after the roast, the stuff gets sour and thin and nothing will coax crema from it. WAY too picky for me and what I'm doing and where I am.

Given that it's blended for their commercial use, at sea level, in Seattle humidity, I can see why it's so darn picky. What I really don't like about it is that some of the beans look like they've been par-roasted already and the differences in size and prep some of the beans get into Full City+ before some of the beans have even gone through a decent amount of first crack. It comes out far more uneven than the Sweet Maria blends and it's sure to be less even than any single varietal.

So a 3 out of 10 for me, as there are a few glories to be had when it's Right.

I have coffee this morning.

It's decaf, but it's coffee, after most of a pregnancy and nursing time without it, it's quite the treat to have it. So I rather cherished making it this morning. I've had a "three cup" Bodum coffee press for years and years and only last week gotten myself a replacement filter for it. It's actually only 12 ounces and how anyone gets three cups out of that, I have no clue. But I cheerfully boiled water in my electric kettle; used my burr grinders to grind four tablespoons of Victor's dark roasted Columbian decaf coffee into a nice, fine grind; dumped it into the glass beaker; poured the boiling water on top; mixed it with a chop stick to get it good and mixed; let it sit for exactly 3 minutes; and then pressed it and poured it into my insulated mug.

Of course, that's when Jet started crying because he was hungry and I can't drink scalding hot liquids over him. Ah well. It was really good when I was done with him, though, as the insulated mug really kept it good and warm and I didn't burn my mouth. So that was all good. And it really tastes wonderful.