Oct 04 2008
Cup of charcoal in the morning
Mmmm, mmm. There is nothing like a lukewarm cup of charcoal to start the day. Truthfully, I do sometimes have yen for coffee that is a little on the dark roast charcoal side. When this craving occurs, I usually take out some of the Aged sumatra grade one lintong or even the Monsooned Malabar that I have in my stash and roast some up. Lately however, I have not been yearning for smoky, dark almost licorice like taste that these two coffee beans offer when roasted past that second crack.
I was certainly not looking for it when I decided to roast up some Yemen Mokha Sareshi the other day either. But, thanks to my lack of diligence, that is precisely what I got. I did set the time on the roaster for 25 minutes in order to get a slightly darker roast, but I was planning to watch the progress and hit the cool button once the beans got to a nice full city darkness. However, I ended up falling sway to the siren call of the Internet and the beans roasted the full 25 without my direct supervision. This in itself would of been forgivable, since 25 was what I was shooting for anyway, but what was not forgivable was the way I let the beans sit around in the hot roasting chamber for around 20 minutes as I tooled around.
While it is ok to wait a little bit for the glass chamber of the Nesco to cool before you remove the beans from it, it is stll important to get them out of there as soon as possible. I generally do this immediately since I have callused paws that can withstand a lot of heat. If you end up leaving the beans sitting in the chamber, they will keep on cooking and your full city roast could end up being a full blown vienna. This is exactly what happened to the Yemen Mokha. I was expecting a nice dark brown bean, but instead got a shiny black bean.
As I daid earlier, there are times that I crave the flavor that the darker roasts brings in a bean, but this was not the time. This dark Yemen roast had a flavor very much akin to the aged sumatra, with a sharp licorice anise taste along with a powdery finish. I did force myself to finish up the batch, to teach myself a lesson, but I sure did not enjoy it as much as I would have a lighter roast. Next time I cook up some of the Yemen, I promise you that I will pay attention and not get lost online.
