Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Leif's new hobby...



This is Leif's new hobby: roasting coffee beans. We have gradually become coffee snobs over the past few years, graduating from a coffee pot to a french press, from buying grounds to grinding coffee beans, and now from buying the beans to roasting our own. I have to admit that freshly roasted coffee, at least the stuff Leif makes, is much better than most of the coffee I've tried. And I like most coffee.

Leif roasts coffee every so often, and tries different beans and different cracking stages to try to get the best flavor. It seems to be something he enjoys immensely, and is most often followed by a freshly steeped pot of coffee and some time with a good book. It's been going on for some time now, but I finally got around to taking pictures of the process while my parents were here. Of course, my dad got in on the coffee roasting action, too.





It's hard to tell what the coffee roasting contraption in the above picture is, but from a different angle you can see quite clearly what turns out such glorious coffee:



Why, it's nothing but an old popcorn popper, you say! Yep, that it is. Leif can give you all the details about first crack, second crack, and all that coffee roasting talk, but the truth of the matter is that it takes little more than some know-how and a popcorn popper to roast your own coffee. It turns out pretty good, too! And I'm just glad he procured another popper so we don't have to eat coffee-flavored popcorn...

3 comments:

Leif Wickland said...

MMMMMM! Coffee-flavored potcorn!

DREW! said...

This is beautiful. Ask Leif for my pardon, but I'm going to piggyback off this hobby in the biggest way. Have you guys found a good place to order the beans? Please, impart!

Leif Wickland said...

I got my first batch from a local coffee shop just to make sure I liked it. After that, I've bought form
Sweet Maria's because they have a fantastic selection and have pretty good prices if you buy enough to amortize the cost of shipping. I bought 12 pounds, which cost about $63 shipped.