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I found this comic in a used bookstore (walden pond bookstore in Oakland) the other day and decided that a guy like me just had to have this. I haven’t read it it, just kind of thumbed through it to get the general gist. The writer is not quite as off the deep end as as I am about coffee( not many people are) but the story itself seems offbeat enough.  I just might get around to actually reading it when I finish all the Discworld novels.

I liked the cover anyways

Speaking of Too Much Coffee Man?

This is a question that I am constantly asking of myself each morning as I work my way through my third, even fourth cup of coffee.

“Four mere cups! Pff!” You say? That it takes a whole pot just to get you out of your bunny slippers?

Well, I say to you

These are not just mere little coffee cups. I drink out of a big fricken cups that delivers 20 oz’s of the juice per fill up.   And the coffee that this joe swills is no  Folgers Fricken Crystals either.  The Chemex allows me to make it strong yet keep it smooth.

By the time I get to my Fourth cup, My neurons are snapping like nobody’s business and my urine smells just like the Folgers Fricken Crystals your drinking.

Still, I do not merely drink just to piss Folgers.

I drink to experience the subtle nuances of a particular origin, to revel in the smoothness of the Kona Kowali, to feel the brown sugar goodness of the Tanzanian Peaberry tweak the edges of my tongue, and the peppermint after taste of the Jacu Bird Coffee lap up against the roof of my mouth.

Sure, my quest for new taste sensations end up getting me a bit overly jazzed up. But that comes with the territory. And, I will admit that there are times, especially in the wee hours of the morn, in which I swill the stuff more for the sake of kick starting my day then to experience the the different tastes from plantations around the world. Still, I imagine even the most refined sommelier likes to get ripped on a bottle of Chianti once in a while.

Well, Now i gotta go roast me up a batch of Guatamala Fraijanes- Finca Agua Tibia which I am told is a real kick in the taste buds, So I will see you folks later.

Last year, as you regulars might recall, I could not stop yammering about how much I liked a certain coffee from Tanzania called the Tanzanian Blackburn Estate AA. I still find myself yacking about it and I have been hanging on to the last remnants of a five pound bag that I won off of Ebay (which I will have to get around to finishing up before it starts to get moldy). Anyways, just like the third season of Dexter (which should be out on DVD next month) I have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the 2009 Blackburn estate crop to show up on the Sweet Maria’s  site.

Well, the wait is over. Sort of anyways.

According to Tom of SM, who knows way too much about coffee, this years Blackburn AA crop suffered greatly on its trip from Mt. Oldeani to the port and he has decided not to carry it but did pick up the slightly more pricey but still worth it (5.65 a pound) Peaberry from the estate which somehow made the trip without getting faded or old tasting in the process.

Since the guy seems to know what he is talking about  (just take a gander at his site and tell me this guy is not a uber coffee nerd), I am going to have to take Tom of Sweet Maria’s word for it that the AA  is not worth it and stick with the peaberry for now. At least it gives me an excuse to use the extra drum that I bought for the Behmor (see picture).

I roasted my first 8oz batch of the stuff at P3 (the defacto profile) starting it at 12:00 and added an extra 3:30 after start to help lengthen up the last leg a bit.  I heard the first crack at the 2:20 mark but I cannot be sure since peaberries seem to want to crack real quiet like. The cool cycle hit before the second crack came and the batch came out looking pretty Full City.

The taste was not fully there the day after but the next couple days my tastebuds woke up to remember that smooth brown sugary taste that Tanzanian Blackburn estate is all about. It is definitely a good cup, if not as mind blowing as last years crop and I can see myself getting a bit more of it from SM before it runs out, especially since the India KatteHollay already is out already. (hey I just cannot have a paragraph without a statement in parenthesis can I)

If I can find it on theCoffee Buying Club or Coffee Buyng CoOp, I just might pick me up a few LB’s of the AA just for experimental sake, otherwise, I guess I must continue my search for a new favorite coffee (and then make sure I buy enough so that it lasts me).

Last weekend, during the Fourth of July,the girlfriend and I decided to go on a little camping trip up in the Sierra Nevada mountains, kind of by Truckee. I also saw this as a great opportunity to try out my newly purchased toy from Sweet Maria’s: the Clever coffee dripper along with the Coleman camping stove that I found at a rummage sale for ten bucks.

The girlfriend just rolled her eyes when she saw me packing up my new clever coffee dripper and bag of ground Tanzanian Blackburn estate along with all the other camping essentials such as the marshmallow roasting sticks pictured in the background. She has learned to live with my obsession as best she can, even accepting the fact that this perhaps the only picture I took during the whole trip.What a woman.

Anyways, this little setup was definitely an upgrade from my previous excursions into campfire coffee, especially the propane stove which makes boiling water on hell of a lot easier then using the campfire.  I almost did buy one of the kitschy little coleman campfire percolaters to try out (the Finn in me happens to like percolated coffee) but then decided that this was a better way to go.

Okay, enough meandering about, and let me get to my newest little toy.

Being the sort of guy who likes body along with smooth taste, I figured the clever coffee dripper was just the thing for me. The folks as Sweet Marias raved about this new fangled coffee filtercone contraption that combines the best of both infusion and drip coffee making  making for one great cup of coffee. The way it works is that it is like a normal filter cone except that is has a neat little stopper device on the bottom that keeps the brew from coming out until you place it on your cup.

Wow, neat huh?

This allows you to seep your brew like a french press for a few minutes to get that body that you crave while at the same time filter it out so you do not get your teeth speckled with grounds. It works with pretty much any coffee cup allowoing me to make a quick mug of joe before I run off to work.

Last week, I also discovered that using Chemex filters in the device makes for a even better cup of coffee (although it will never truly replace the Chemex maker which is just to damn pretty) since the filters will give you a smooth tasting cup no matter how long you happen to let the brew seep. I made a cup of India Kattehollay Estate peaberry that just blew me away.

It is also microwaveable, although I have trouble figuring out how much time I need to nuke it for to get the water temperature right.