Bleh

It's chilly and gray here today. Bleh. I really, really, really want spring to come. I know, I know - me and everybody else, right?


But, we're roasting some coffee as I write this, and it smells wonderful. We started roasting our own coffee this winter after I emptied yet another plastic coffee container. I tried to reuse them, but they're ugly and we're trying to get away from the use of so much plastic. So, I started researching ways to get away from packaged coffee, and I came across Sweet Maria's. And our coffee-making was changed forever.

This is a photo of a coffee plant. I stole all the coffee photos in this post from Sweet Maria's website, and I will do penance for my theft by buying some Kona coffee beans. Wait, penance should be unpleasant, right? So maybe that's not such a good plan!

Coffee is actually very easy to roast at home. You can roast it over an open fire, on your stovetop, in a re-purposed popcorn popper (we have a secondhand Westbend Poppery popper found on Craigslist) or in a specially designed coffee roaster. And green coffee beans have a pretty long shelf life, while roasted coffee gets stale very quickly.

Look at the lovely green coffee beans - just waiting for someone to toss them into a hot roaster!

The taste of freshly roasted coffee is amazing. It's much more complex and flavorful than the national brand we used to use, and by buying from a reputable dealer we can reasonably expect that the coffee producer got a fair shake, as well. The initial set-up cost varies, depending on the equipment you use. We already owned a coffee grinder, so our only expense was the secondhand popper and a variety of green coffee beans to practice roasting. We got started in coffee roasting for under $20.

Here's a lovely dark roast! We were spoiled by living in the Pacific Northwest, where we acquired a taste for dark coffees.

A pound of freshly roasted gourmet coffee runs $5-$25 (or more, depending on the variety), so roasting your own nets a small monetary savings if you drink gourmet coffee. If you drink supermarket coffee, though, you might not see much savings. You will have much better flavor and a more environmentally-friendly coffee, though, and that does make a difference.

I took a pound of freshly roasted coffee to a party a couple of weeks ago and one of our friends said, "Don't tell me you're growing coffee out there on that farm of yours, now!" Well, no - I still haven't figured out how to grow a tropical plant in Tennessee without the aid of a greenhouse. But I can have a fresh cup of coffee on a cold gray day, and that's something!