I wrote recently about roasting coffee at home and listed some things I’ve learned about coffee over the years. I’ve continued to learn as I’ve roasted and drunk (that’s sounds weird but I assure you it’s grammatically correct), and I’m going to share them here.

1) Fresh ground coffee is great; fresh roasted coffee is not. I mentioned in my previous entry that coffee needs to de-gas after roasting, but I’ve learned that it needs to do this for longer than I initially thought. Freshly roasted coffee is actually pretty gross, as it forms carbonic acid in your drink — basically it’s carbonated coffee, and carbonation is not something you want in coffee, ever. I was curious about this so I did it on purpose, and then continued to grind and brew the same beans day after day to observe the difference. It got better with each day that passed. Allowing the coffee to bloom helps too — look that up if you’re not sure what it is; there are more knowledgeable people than I explaining it.

2) Coffee is processed in different ways and this results in different flavors in the final product. There’s a lot of information online about this, but broadly, you have three types: natural, washed, and honey. Natural processing dries the beans with the fruit still on them (coffee cherries taste great, by the way), which imparts some of the flavors of the fermenting fruit to the beans. Washed coffee is dried without the fruit and tastes more like most people think coffee should taste. Honey is somewhere in between and I don’t know the details — I haven’t tried it yet. The process doesn’t actually involve any honey, but apparently the final product has a honey-like flavor. When I try some I’ll let you know. So far I have ordered both washed and natural Geisha coffee from Panama, and there was quite a difference between them. I’m not sure I have a preference, and in truth I don’t feel that qualified to make an assessment just yet — my palate is in full, working order, but I’m still getting the hang of roasting and brewing.

So that’s my list — two things. I ordered some Kona peaberry that’s arriving tomorrow, so it’ll be fun to compare that to the Panamanian stuff I’ve been drinking.