May 13, 2005
This evening I tasted the Indian Monsooned Malabar that Garrick and I roasted the other day. Giving the beans a few days to rest helped quite a bit: the flavors mellowed out and it became a very nice example of a monsooned coffee. Something possessed me to record myself tasting the coffee, so I fired up Audacity and gave it a shot: malabar.mp3. This is very rough, for which I apologize. I know next to nothing about editing audio, and for the first few minutes there's some occasional static that I don't know how to remove.
Warning: lots of slurping noises. If you're sensitive to slurping, you probably don't want to listen.
My friend and former roommate Stephen Howe reminded me that once upon a time I had a hot air roaster not entirely dissimilar to a popcorn popper except with a chaff collector. If memory serves, it was made by Melitta. I don't think I was ever thrilled with the coffee, but it sure was fun to use. If this week's experience with home roasting has taught me anything, it's that you just can't beat freshly roasted coffee, even if it's not professionally done.
