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Greetings and salutations my friends. I hope your turkeyday was a pleasant one.  Aside from the debacle that was called a Lions game, mine was pretty good.  I made some pumpkin pie from fresh pumpkins that turned out great. I enjoyed it with some  great coffee of the moka-java variety.

Speaking of Moka Java, After partaking with the “coincidentally perfect” moka java blend suggested by the peeps over at SM, I decided to do alittle experimenting with the remaining Java Kajumas Curah Tatal, to see what else it might blend well with. I had three ounces of the Yemen Mohki Sharesi sitting around and I thought to myself, Mohki, Moka Hmmm…

I roasted the three ounces of the Yemen Mohki for around 22 minutes in the Nesco getting a nice dark full city blend. (Since the amount was small, the beans roasted darker in less time which was why I roasted it for a much shorter period). I then did the same with the Java Kajumas. I blended these two dark roasts together in one jar,  mixing them real well like some mad chemist.

I have been enjoying this blend side by side with the Coincidentally perfect blend, seeing if my Mohki Java idea was up to snuff and low and behold I think I may be up to something. While the Ethiopian Kembata and Java Kajumas do seem to blend together real smooth, I believe my experiment holds its own quite well. I am currently sipping on a pot of the stuff, on its  fourth day of rest, I do believe I had  caught it ats its peak condition.  The Mohki, which I do not recall really liking too much seems to blend really well with the smooth java and the dark roasted  flavor brings out the chocolate charcoal tastiness.

I think I might do a little more Moka Java experimentating this month to see what other beans go well together. Well maybe. I do have plans to do some serious pre christmas roasting to prepare some gifts for friends and family so I might have to hold off a bit on the experimenting and stick to the tried and true roasts.

There is nothing like a little vacation to make you better appreciate the mundane comforts of home.

We decided to go explore the mountains of Southern Utah and check out the national parks of Bryce Canyon and Zion. Along the way we decided to do a little camping in Death Valley and in the Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada and on the way back, I surprised the girlfriend with tickets to the  Phantom of the Opera in Vegas baby!

Okay, I know what your thinking.  What the hell was old BS going to do about his little coffee  obsession  during this week long extravaganza in America’s West. Well, don’t you worry because I had made contingency plans.

Well, sort of…

The night before we loaded up the rental and struck off for  parts kind of unknown, I roasted up a batch of Guatamalen Antigua Los Pastores peaberry. I really wanted to make up some more of the Moka Java blend, but I really could not spare the extra time needed to roast two different beans. The next morning, I brewed up a big pot of peaberry in my Chemex   and filled up my Thermos. I then ground up the remaining beans and put  them into a Ziploc. Since I really did not want to blow my cash on a campfire coffeemaker, I came up with a simple plan to get fresh brewed coffee while  sleeping out under the stars.  I packed up my little Bodum single cup drip coffee maker along with a little pot  to boil water with.  I figured I could boil water over the campfire in the morning  and make me up a cup of the go go juice. The only problem was that the campsite in Death Valley did not have one of those grill things that you can flip over the fire pit, so I had to get all MacGyver and use my charcoal grill to heat up my water. The water took forever to heat up and I was afraid that the coffee was going to end up tasting like mesquite briquetes, but in the end it turned out pretty damn good.  Thankfully, the firepit at the Valley of Fire campsite  had one of those flip grill things and the next morning’s cup was brewed more according to plans, although it did not taste as good for some reason.

When we finally got to the cabin, I realized I had only scant amount of my coffee left and I had to resort to actually buying some ground up stuff from walmart. Wierd thing was, the Sam’s Choice Ethiopian blend ended up not being too bad. It was a bit too dark, but still passable and probably on par with anything from Starbucks.

Stay tuned for some awesome pics of all the cups I collected along the way.

I bought a black and decker burr grinder from Target a few months back hoping to get with the program and increase my overall coffee experience. They say that Burr grinders offer a better taste experience because they give you a more consistent grind and do not wreak havoc upon the tasty oils within the bean that the whirly blade type grinders do.

Cruising online, I found several options for fancy burr grinders ranging from about a hundred to two hundred bucks for a fancy commercial use one. Being cheap, I searched further hoping to find one that was more in my price range. I almost bought a used one off of ebay before I found that Target, the lower middle class man’s Kmart, actually sold one for around 20 bucks. So I went ahead and bought it figuring that if it sucks, at least I am only out a Jackson and I do not have to wait  for some dude from ebay to get off his butt and mail me his grandmas used one.

So, all in all I am happy with the results of the grinder. It seems to have enough settings for my range of coffee producing devices and with a little tweaking I have figured out the ideal notch for each. It is also a nicely streamlined machine  with an appelaing black and stainless steel finish. However, in their efforts to make it look pretty, the boys and girls at black and decker gave up some functionality for its form. The little plastic container that catches the grounds is fit a little bit too snug, making it a bitch to pull out at times. There are little grip lines on each side of it, but they really do not help and since I am cursed with uber dry hands, I cannot get a grip on the sucker if my life depended upon it. Some mornings, I feel like shouting “Hulk Smash!” and  throwing the device on the floor to crack it open and retrieve my precious, precious coffee.  After watching The Jerk (that eighties flick starring Steve Martin)  on Comedy Central, I gave thought to  Super gluing  a little handle on the device but then figured I will just make a bigger mess.

Another thing I do not like about the grind chamber is that the grounds have a tendency to stick to the edges of its plastic walls. I usually try to give it a few good whacks to try to dislodge the grounds but then end up using my fingers to scrape it out since whacking it too hard ends up sending coffee flying all over my kitchen.

Well, with all that said, the little grinder has made my coffee taste consistently better, and I now know why all the coffee fiends that  post on the various coffee related   sites that I am part of insist on using them. I guess I will live with my flawed grinder for a while until I can afford a nicer one.

Hi there folks. Sorry it took me a full week to get back to tending my blogpire, but I guess I was so caught up with shouting Obama!, Obama! that I neglected my duties  to my coffee empire. I tried my best to turn this plain white cup into a commerative election cup, but I cannot get the sticker to go on smoothly. Oh well, I guess I can’t have a cup for every occasion.

Ok now, down to brass tax, I was going to discuss this excellent Guatamalen Peaberry that I was gulping down with abandon earlier this week, but I am going to have to come to that since I just absolutely have to discuss this mocha java blend that I been brewing up recently. It so dang good, it makes wanna throw rocks at grandma.

First a little history lesson. I know you are probably wandering what the hell does Mocha Java mean. For some reason, I always associated the name with some flavored crap you find at a gas station and did not realize that Mocha Java was in fact one of the worlds first blends of coffee.  Back in the early days   coffee usually came from  one source: the Yemen port of Mocha  that sat on the Red Sea. Because of this most of the coffee that was grown in Yemen and neighboring Ethiopia was given the moniker of Mocha (or Moka, Moki, Mocca ect). Later on the Dutch started growing their own coffee on the island of Java.  The mocha region coffee  had a wild and robust taste with strong fruited notes while the Java was more subdued and clean tasting. Somebody then got the bright idea to put these two polar opposites together and see what happens, and presto change-o: the world first coffee blend was born. The muted subdued taste of the java complimented the wild berry taste of the mocha, making for one complex cup of coffee

Now with that little history lesson out of the way (google Ken David if you want a more in depth discussion about this) Let me get down to my own particular Mocha Java blend. Well, ok, its not really mine since I got the idea from Sweet Marias. I decided to purchase a pound of the Ethiopia Kembata Grade 4 dry process along with a pound of the Java Kajumas Curah Tatal simply because SM mentioned that blending the two makes a “coincidentally perfect mocha java blend.” Being a sucker for things that happen to be coincidentally perfect as well as wanting to try a little blending action, I decided to give it a try.

I roasted up the Java Kajumas for about 26 minutes in my Nesco, coming up with a full city plus roast and then after the machine cooled a bit, I roasted the Kembata at about 24 minutes to a nice medium full city. The next morning I got ready to do my blending. I decided it would be best to use my postal scale and combine exact amounts of both the Java Kajumas and the Ethiopian Kembata for my first go at it. I simply weighed out about a ounce each and then stirred them together in a plastic storage container then ground them and brewed a big ol’ pot of it in my Chemex.

This blend just blew me away. I had previously tasted the Ethiopian Kembata on its own and found it to be your typical rustic Ethiopian with heavily fruited notes. Blending it with the Java Kajumas  gave it a completely different complexity as well as smoothness that it was lacking before. The intitial combined taste is a bit hard to describe. It has a chocolately smoothness as well as something else, a note that give it this extra character that make the taste unforgetable.

The next morning I dumped the remaining beans toghter and stirred them up real good and have been sipping on this blended brew for the past three days. Perhaps I should have wieghed both batches before throwing them together though, since the blend does not taste as “coincentally perfect” as the first day’s , but it is still pretty dang good.

Happy Halloween everybody! Ok, I am a day late, but I had stuff to do. Here is a pic of the pumpkins Lalaine (my girlfriend) and I carved to celebrate the occasion.  The one I did is on the left, I think it is a little scarier looking than her pumpkin, but her’s has much more detail. Ok, enough about our annual pumpkin carving competition and lets get down to what this blog is really all about….

I guess to get into the Halloween spirit, I should be drinking some pumpkin flavored latte or some other crappy flavored coffee concoction available at the gas station nearest you.  Instead I decided to roast up the El Salavador cup of Excellence Winner: The Finca Malacara.  Finca Malacara, hmmm, kind of sounds like a new Latin dance. Everybody get in line! Were doing the Finca Malacara! I decided to purchase the  coffee from Sweet Maria’s because I had not yet tried a green coffee from El Salvador and I was also intrigued by the whole “cup of excellence” title. At nearly ten bucks,  a pound of the Finca Malacara cost almost twice as much as the other three coffees I had selected for my latest procurement, but it also had the best review.

I roasted its excellency for a smidgen under 24 minutes in my  Nesco, engaging the cool cycle a little early, after hearing the second cracks start up. The resulting cup was a nice middle full city roast with a uniform darkish brown color throughout. Since I still had a bit of just roasted Tanzanian Blackburn estate laying around, I was going to let it rest for a second day, but my curiousity got the best of me and I brewed up a batch of it the next morning. After my first sip, I knew I should have waited. The taste was ok, but I could tell that it had not really fully developed yet.

The next morning (halloween) it tasted a bit better and I was beginning to see why this coffee took home the title, but I think I was too busy ogling my girlfriend in her princess Leia costume to really appreciate the cup’s subtle nuances.  I do not know what it is with those little hairbuns, but they drive me wild.

So today I just brewed up the last of it and I am doing my best to fully concentrate on the flavor and character that this winner of the El Salvadorian cup of excellence surely must have. I mean they don’t give those awards out to just anybody like door prizes at a Bingo game.

My first impression of this coffee is that it is very clean and bright. A very good wake up and face the day kind of coffee. I do not what happened to me in the past month, but for some reason, I now prefer these clean and bright coffee as opposed to the darker ones with more body. I even had trouble finishing up the Guatamalen Oriente whose extreme taste was exactly what I was looking for this past summer. Perhaps, it is a seasonal thing.

I taste a hint of berry and oat, no wait a minute, I think that is from the berry clusters cereal that I had just ate. This coffee has more of a elegant citrus hint to it, something a bit sweeter than an orange. Perhaps a clementine or a tangerine would best describe it.  It also has a particular smoothness that is akin to the Gesha, although not as chocolately. The taste that lingers in my mouth after I swallow is one of stawberries that are still a bit on the sour side.

After these ruminations, I must say that this Finca Malacara is an excellent cup indeed, and it was something that truly hit the right notes with me this morning. Perhaps it is because, I was  focused it on it for once instead thinking about pumpkins and sexy princess leia costumes. I will write more on this one later.