Work?  Yes, work.  remember, I have to drink the stuff now!  I mean, a very dedicated coffee drinker like me can’t just roast the beans and then forget, I have to put the scientific process into play and give the beans some taste testing.  Hey, it’s a tough job, but somebody must do it, right?

You see, when you roast coffee beans, you don’t get to go brew a cup of joe right away.  I guess you can if you want to, but if you want the best cup of coffee, first you need to let the beans rest for a few days, and degas.  Degas?  Yes, you see, coffee beans have gasses in them after you roast them, and over a short time of a few days or so, the gases escape the bean, and leave a better flavor.

My strategy is this.  When I roast a new bean that I’ve never tasted before, after 24 hours I brew a half cup of it so that I can taste it.  I brew another half cup for tasting on the second day.  On the third day and forward, I brew a full cup each day.  You would be surprised, the flavor of the beans can change very drastically from day to day.  This is why I do it this way, so I can see on which day the bean reaches it’s peak of flavor.

So, since I roasted these new beans, I am on the 5th day post-roast.  I have been following my day-to-day procedure of tasting the coffee that the beans produces.  Over the next few days, I will share with you my “cupping notes” on each of the beans that I received last week.

Just a quick note.  In coffee, “cupping” is a science.  There are expert cuppers who taste the brew and they come up with lots of different descriptions, and notes about the beans.  I am no scientist.  I simply brew the coffee and prepare it the way I like it, and drink it.  While drinking it, I decide what I think, but it is not scientific, and I am no expert.  Well, let me change that.  I am the world’s leading expert on what  I think, but beyond that, no.  So, don’t look at my ipressions as absolutely fact or anything like that.  Just what Bob thinks of the bean.

There are a lot of better ways to roast coffee beans, but I am a bit of a simpleton when it comes to coffee, and I enjoy pan roasting.  You can do a better job with commercial roasting equipment, but pan roasting is fine for me, for now anyway.

If you like coffee, but have never roasted your own beans before, you probably don’t know what coffee really tastes like.  The coffee you buy in the grocery store was roasted months ago, and it’s stale.  The coffee that I roast and drink is used within 1 week or so after it is roasted.  I store it in special bags that keep it fresh.  The coffee I roast and drink tastes nothing like what you will taste from a can you buy in the store.

To roast coffee beans, there are a few steps:

• Personally, I pan roast no more than a half pound of coffee beans at a time.  I do this because I feel I can better control the roast on a small batch, and also by roasting a small batch I can drink it while it remains quite fresh.
• You will roast the coffee in a pan, as I show in the video.
• After the roasting is complete, you need to cool the beans as soon and as quickly as possible.
• Let the beans rest for at least 24 hours before drinking the coffee, as they will develop more flavor after having rest time.

I hope you enjoyed the video!  Enjoy the coffee too, I know I will!