December 31, 2004
A favorite recent addition to my blogroll is Garrick Van Buren's First Crack, a podcast about coffee, technology, music, and whatever else strikes his fancy. He first caught my attention with a — what do I call it? show? episode? podcast? — about copyright issues and the Intellectual Property Protection Act, near and dear to my heart. His interview with The Winter Blanket introduced me to some great local music. Good stuff.
Garrick recently interviewed Greg Beale, a coffee roaster at Dunn Bros.. I brewed myself a pot of freshly roasted Guatemalan coffee, kicked back, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was just so damn cool to hear. I worked as a coffee roaster for a few years and am still in love with the process. So much of how I roasted was a sensory experience: I relied on sight, sound, smell to know how the beans were developing and how to nudge them along. Listening to the interview brought it all back: the green beans as they drop into the roaster and rhythmically churn around, the subtle shifts in the sound as the beans warm, the satisfying crackle and smoke of the second crack when the beans are released into the cooling tray.
I've got to start roasting at home again soon.
