ePebo Vacuum Brewer

 20 years ago, I purchased a Starbucks Barista Utopia vacuum brewer (when they were on closeout from Starbucks). It was a great coffee maker, I nicknamed the coffee volcano, but was used pretty heartily for making several pots of coffee a day for me and my roommates, and eventually wore out. 

Bodum (who manufactured the Utopia back in the day), have another electric vacuum brewer, the ePebo. It was (probably) on closeout, so I purchased us a new coffee maker at 50% off. Also, our trusty drip maker finally gave out.

Starbuck's Utopia from long ago

George Foreman George Jr. Rotisserie Coffee Roaster

 

After using the Popcorn popper method for a while, I wanted to upgrade to a drum roaster. I had intended to use a drum on a barbecue. However, my daughter and I were at the thrift store and saw a nice rotisserie for cheap, so I have been using that to work on my home roasting. It wasn't shedding the chaff, so I merged it with the popcorn popper, and now it's roasting nicely. The video above shows the second crack for a dark Ethiopian yergacheffe, with a photo of the results below.

Slow Motion Yergacheffe

Continuing on in the popcorn coffee roasting method, here is a slow motion video of some Ethiopian Yergacheffe being roasted.

Popper Roasted Coffee

I have a friend at work who uses popcorn poppers to roast coffee. So, after hearing about his adventures, I stopped by the thrift store and found a suitable popcorn popper. I then stopped by a local Roastery and picked up some green Ethiopian coffee. They were our of Yergacheffe and Harrar, but did have some Sidamo.

Fresh roasted coffee has arrived. It's a fun new perspective of the beany beverage.

Coffee Rant - Peruvian Pour Over

In 2010, Melissa and I went to Costa Rica with Mission Aviation Fellowship. While we were there, we had dinner with a friend who was staying with a family from Peru. They served us excellently prepared ceviche.

As well, they offered us some pour over coffee. As you can see the pour over devices in Costa Rica are a bit more rustic than the ones you might find in the Pacific Northwest these days.

Coffee Rant - The Kona Coffee and Tea Company Private Reserve 100% Kona Coffee: Peaberry

Tranquil waves rhythmically resound upon the lava seashore. 🏝️ Coral rock and broken seashells line the beach sands. 🏖️ The cirrus clouds float gently upon the afternoon trade-winds. 🌤️ The stoic palm trees rise high above the sands, slowly swaying in the breeze. 🌴

Peaberrys are coffee beans that have been compressed at the center of supernovae. ✨ Resulting in a super abundance of flavor and coff-ee-nicity. ☕

Characteristics: The rich red earth of the volcanic islands mixed with sunny beach breezes. This coffee provides a definitive cornerstone of the Kona region; delivering a sublime coffee experience. Coupled with Hawaiian steel guitar music and the morning breezes of the Kona area of the Big Island, it produces a tranquility akin to floating among the clouds. 🌺 Now with island emoji.

Pacific Northwest Coffee Adventures - Extracto Coffee

Continuing my Pacific Northwest coffee adventure, I stopped by Extracto Coffee Roasters.  The front of the store is rather unassuming, with a single sidewalk board to announce the shop.  A comfy place, bedecked with laptop users, an immaculate espresso bar, featuring lovely decor, and piles of burlap sacks full of un-roasted coffee beans lining the back of the shop.  The ambient sounds of what I think was Sigur Ros was filling the air.  They have dairy products also.
This afternoon, I felt like a chocolate beverage, so I opted for a mocha, getting an Americano for Melissa.  The chocolate in the mocha was quite understated, with an almost whisky like consistency.  If I was to idealize what a whisky mocha would be, this would have fit the bill.  Not sure that is what I am generally looking for in a chocolaty beverage, but it was exquisite, none the less.  Will be making a return trip to Extracto, but most likely for a con panna espresso!

Pacific Northwest Coffee Adventures - Water Ave

Another adventure is Coffeedom landed me at Water Ave Coffee.  Located in the industrial zone of Portland, there is a large commercial complex where shops and business have perched.  Water Ave Coffee is one of these business.  This shop serves espresso.  They do not serve Con Pana.    The store also features a fair amount of the retro-industrial 'East German' furniture.

I've noted two major trends in the shops featuring espresso of the greater Portland area.  One trend would be to not stock dairy or accoutrements for your espresso.  My assumption is that there is maintained an axiom that true purveyors of espresso would never befoul espresso with something as profane as whip creme.
My second observation is I believe coupled with the first.  That is, if a store doesn't serve anything except espresso (and/or espresso with water), the probability that there will be industrial furniture in tow rises exponentially.

I suppose it's a natural progression to have coffee shops that only serve espresso and water, and are clinically uncomfortable.   However, these seem to miss the warmth and heart that I've enjoyed

Pacific Northwest Coffee Adventures - River Maiden

Traversing through the greater Portland Area, one of my favorite coffeeshops has turned out to be the River Maiden Artisan Coffee.  Serving excellent coffee, and featuring a decent atmosphere to do coffeeship things, such as chatting, reading, and computing.  They serve up wonderfully extracted and presented Stumptown Coffee Roasters, have a beautiful enthusiasm for their local Vancouver.
I've done a fair bit of reading so far at the River Maiden, and appreciate the comfortable environment, which is distinctly lacking in retro-industrial unfinished furniture.  They also showcase art on their walls, as well.  In fact, in some ways, River Maiden reminds me of one of my favorite coffeeshops of all time, the long defunct Crooked House in Salem, Oregon.  Thanks for the great coffee and excellent atmosphere.

Pacific Northwest Coffee Adventures - Ristretto Roasters

On of my favorite stops so far on my tour de force of the espresso/coffee shops of the greater Portland is Ristretto Roasters.  Their coffee was excellent, a pure and hearty espresso, and Con Pana!
In character with the Portland vibe, of industry Retro-fab East Germanesque, the chair and stools seemed to have been soviet re-issues.  Alas, there is something wrong with Portland.   But other than the furniture, the coffee and shop at Ristretto Roasters is not the problem.
Look forward to visiting Ristretto again!

Pacific Northwest Coffee Adventures - Coava Coffee

After arriving in the Pacific Northwest, I've had the opportunity to appraise the coffee landscape.  While I've had windows of opportunity to glimpse some sublime coffee practitioners, being in Portland also for some excellent opportunity to survey the greater Portland landscape, hipsters and all.
Coava Coffee was on the list of must visits.  The Espresso was excellent.  They are espresso only, so if you want some con pana on that doppio, you are out of luck.  The shop itself was some sort of industrial retro-cycle.  A pattern of metal stools with no pads seems to have pervaded with the hipsters.  Overall, excellent espresso, and not much else.

Ethiopian Konga: Feng Shui of the Mouth

I thought that the Ethiopian Yergacheffe would be the longstanding champion, and that it would reign supreme for some time.  It seems that there has been a fair bit of speculation about planetary alignment, and perhaps there is something to the elements in nature aligning to create something special.  In this case, I think that the Starbucks Reserve sun dried Ethiopian Konga is a rare case of all concerned elements working in harmonious fashion.   A veritable Feng shui of the mouth; the flavors and textures working together in what might be a paneurythmy dance of your taste buds.  Definitely worth trying out at least once.

Characteristics:
The king is dead, long live the king!

Yorkshire Gold

Achtung: may contain pure awesome.

It's taken some time, but I think I've found one of the primal essences of the tea world, Yorkshire Gold.  I've been kicking around various teas for quite some time.  Such greats at Tazo Passion tea, Tazo Earl Grey, Trader Joe's Earl Grey, Rooibos, and your general purpose Orange Pekoe.

Anyway, after so many years, I found the Yorkshire Gold, which it a quintessential English tea blend.  Some contend that it vies with PG tips for that title.  Anyway, I think it is pretty spectacular.

Fermented Carbonated Coffee

Long ago and far away...  it was the spring of 1996.  I was a freshman in college, living in the newest dorm on campus.  On of my friends from High School had preceded me to college, and lived down the hall at the dorm.  He happened to also work at Starbucks. At that time, Starbucks was still a Pacific Northwest phenomenon.  A store didn't arrive in Idaho for several more years.  However, in Salem, Oregon, it was now beginning its domination of the coffee scene.

Starbucks was looking for ways to revolutionize the coffee industry.  Besides launching spacecraft crammed with coffee beans toward the sun, they were trying new and exciting products out on the general populace.  One of their new products was Mazagran.  Mazagran was a carbonated cold coffee beverage.  It was not popular, and as such, my barista friend ended up with a four pack.  It wasn't very good, and many were already prejudiced against cold coffee beverages (excluding espresso beverages, especially the then new blended espresso beverages).

One afternoon, my friend opened a new Mazagran.  He had drank a Mazagran the day before, and this Mazagran would be his second or third.  As my friend was drinking the Mazagran, he remarked, "Every time I drink one of these, they taste more and more like beer."  Puzzled, he shared it with the rest of us, and we agreed.  The Mazagran seemed to transmute into beer.  We took the Mazagran to the resident expert, and we were assured that indeed it had fermented.

Characteristics:
A burnt tartness bubbling up to intermix both the properties of caffeine, carbonation, and alcohol.

Coffee Stop

While we were in Oregon, we enjoyed excellent coffee from many different places:

• Dapper and Wise
• A roaster that roasts espresso in Hillsboro.  Visiting their tasting room, it mostly featured espresso, espresso and lemonade, espresso and sugar, espresso and hot water, etc.
• Mojo 
• A small drive through coffee kiosk in Lincoln City, featuring Stumptown coffeee.  We got Lauren her first hot chocolate there.
• Governor's Cup
• An coffee house in Salem, which has become been around for quite some time, as far as coffee houses in Salem.

Coffee Rant - Ethiopian Yergacheffe

A fighter jet designed from the ground up to push the envelope further than it has even been pushed before.  A formidable force.  Possibly the best in the world...  and at least one of the best in the universe.

Characteristics:
A wholesome earthy taste, with a strong hint of berry, specifically the tartness of huckleberries.  Smooth with a pleasant aftertaste.  Afterburners...

Coffee Rant - Kati Kati

Boom!  Broadside!
The spray of salt water, the heave of the ship in the waves, and the smoke pouring forth from the mighty bronze and iron cannons.  A floating castle, bristling with arms, flying colors, and ready to take on the world.



Characteristics:
The aroma of burnt gunpowder lingers in the air.  A characteristically über-roasted coffee.  But the spirit of the beans pushes forth, allowing this blend of African coffees to speak for itself through the copious charcoal.  And the booming pronouncement is that this coffee is good.  Both as espresso (due to its interment in the roaster's inferno), pressed, and drip coffee.

Coffee Rant - Kona Classic

 There exists a rip in the fabric of time and space.  The anomaly is centered around the coffee beans grown in the Hawaiian islands.  Kona is the frontrunner of these.  The Hawaiian islands are special to us American coffee imbibers because they are in the tropical belt that coffee plants prefer.  And they happen to be the only U.S. state in that geographical belt.

Kona, being a precious commodity, is often blended with other coffees.  Other things of note that are blended:   House paint, Margaritas, and a peculiar blend of 14% wood pulp and 86% water.

Characteristics:
Boiling water percolated over dehydrated grounds, mixed with the blissful shards of the Hawaiian islands.  Flying fish... and possibly a dab of pykrete.

Coffee Rant - Iced Coffee

A paradox of the senses.  Something that seems to be so wrong, yet somehow turns out ok.  Iced coffee: an experiment gone wrong?  There has always been those who seek to be 'first' in the discovery of new things.  Those who venture into unfamiliar territory.  Nine times out of eight, these wrong turns end up a failure.  However, in that implausible moment, there exists the spark of discovery.  A new element... a new molecule... a new beverage.

The precise wrong turn that started people drinking cold coffee hasn't been revealed to us by history.  I imagine it was out of necessity... somewhere in a horrific war.  The valiant surviving veteran returned home with a palate for the unusual.  A taste for the tepid flavors of cold coffee.

Or perhaps it was something that only could of been conceived in the Space Age.  The relatively passive discovery of freeze-dried ice cream has led to us to the greater advance in the science of Iced Coffee.  Who knows what strange boundaries are yet to be transgressed in the pursuit of coffee.

Characteristics:
Bold and out of this earthy.

Coffee Rant - Bali Blue Moon

Bali Blue Moon coffee is a product of the island of Bali, in Indonesia.  Bali has a rich history of growing coffee, but in 1963, a volcanic eruption caused the island to have problems that persisted for almost two decades, severely stunting the coffee industry during that time.

Blue Moon is a figure of speech that connotates the idea of rarity.  Something that happens every once in a blue moon... doesn't happen very often.  Like finding a unicorn, the Loch Ness monster, or a governmental tax decrease.  Sure, there are stories about Bigfoot, but no one carries size 52 sneakers.

Blue Moon coffee might just be the Fountain of Youth of coffee-dom.  A quest for some mythical water sculpture frozen solid somewheres underneath the Epcot center in the swamps of central Florida.  Explorers have scoured the mosquito infested tropical jungles and the back halls of Hogwarts looking for a rumor of better coffee.

Characteristics:
Rich and smooth with a pleasant aftertaste, hints of a tropical monsoon, and Hovitos!