Plant of the Month: Robusta Coffee (2021)
daily.jstor.org
daily.jstor.org
And I came to the conclusion I liked a specific brand of 100% dark-roasted robusta the most, by far. And I like it black.
Now I have to live with the fact that I’m a philistine, a lover of bad coffee, and an enjoyer of burnt tire smell. But hey, at least I can get the stuff I like on the cheap. More discerning types can have their expensive hipster lemon juice (which I also enjoy, but to a much lesser extent).
https://www.amazon.com/Caff%C3%A8-Chicco-Tradition-Whole-100...
You're wrong about the beans themselves not resulting in a bad cup. Go and find a high quality specialty green and roast it e.g a Cup of Excellence winner. A really good green is much more forgiving to roast and a schmuck like me can get a decent cup. A cheaper bean is more difficult. And typically it's easiest to just roast a bit darker past medium to start hitting the cocoa and caramel notes.
You probably also like peated whiskies and high ester spirits.
You might even like this 17yo rum[0]:
> Initial aromas are of petrol, an old machinists shop with vulcanizing shit going on in the background, rubber, phenols, iodine. Gradually fruits emerge, all dark and sullen and sulky. Plums, blackberries, dates, plus sweet caramel and molasses. Some herbs – dill, rosemary. And behind it all coils the familiar scent of fresh hot tar being laid down in the summer sun.
> The taste is very similar. Like the nose, the first notes are of an old bottom-house car repair shop where the oil has soaked into the sand, and rubber tyres and inner tubes are being repaired everywhere, and the occasionally pungent raw petrol aromas makes you feel like you’re passing an oil refinery.
Same goes for wine.
My taste in wine is similarly lax, but I set a price floor at ~$6-7 to avoid accidentally buying vinegar, and rarely go over ~$15-20 unless there’s a special occasion or specific reason to splurge. My only other criteria, which has never failed me: a pretty label.
Personally, I started liking really dark roasts in a French Press which pushes it even further. But, I learned that what I was looking for were chocolate and earth notes, and that the roast wasn't an especially good predictor of the intensity of those flavors. I had good coffee gear specialty shops that did flights for purchasing beans, and Starbucks Reserve (with some hits and misses) for getting more variety in flights.
And in fact, dark roasts are more likely to obscure those flavors.
Too light a roast and you'll get too much floral/grass, too dark and you'll get too much of a burned flavor, for obvious reasons.
The brew method also plays a big part, which is why dark (ish) roasts do better with cold brew than hot brews for pulling out the beans flavors.
I typically do a medium roast with no oily sheen to them and it serves me well. A honey-wash might take more roasting while keeping its flavor, though I haven't figured out why.
Roasting at home also saves a ton of money and the beans can last two years in storage versus a few weeks post-roast.
I thought an oily/shiny appearance of coffee beans was due to them being roasted too long ago and then some of the coffee bean oils "leaking" out of the beans. Is this not the case, i.e. something that might even be controllable with the roasting process, even something desirable in some cases?
https://mtpak.coffee/coffee-roasting-basics-guide-to-first-s...
Oily beans are dark roasted and have a different flavour profile. If you get cheap supermarket espresso beans, they're usually roasted to this point. I think it gives a more consistent product given input variability, varietal differences are no longer so apparent.
As far as roasting equipment... I actually recommend starting with stovetop/pan roasting. You may struggle more to get an even roast vs buying an appliance or using a popper, but it's cheap, and pan roasting heats via conduction (not convection) which is the de-facto method of most roasteries.
450 degrees F for 10-12 minutes (you can eyeball the beans will get you started).
I've used a few vendors for the green beans but will recommend https://www.coffeebeancorral.com/ (no affiliation). I usually buy beans in the $40 (shipping) / per 5 lbs.
You'll have to deal with chaff but as you go forward you can get into more elaborate options. And to be honest I end up grinding a not insignificant amount of chaff (it doesn't affect flavor).
This is bad advice. I really can’t recommend this.
If you’ve ever played with home rosters with larger capacities, you’ll quickly find out just how much smoke gets generated. It’s a sticky and oily smoke too.
You don’t want that in your home.
Either you’re outside, or buy something like a Behmor that has an after burner.
Fluid bed roasters dissipate the smoke much faster compared to drum roasters. I used to use a small fluid bed with some concertina tubing and a lot of filters to pipe the smoke outdoors. That tubing got very dirty. I never saw any smoke from it. But you can smell it and it’ll trip your smoke detector.
I’ve never heard of any one recommending the oven as a first attempt. Usually it’s a pop corn maker.
I’ve used several home roasters. Getting one with an afterburner is the way to go unless you have extremely good ventilation or powerful range hood that vents outdoors.
That's extremely surprising given the first handful or so of Google results suggest it (along with the popcorn maker)
Unless you're going for a French roast in a small, unventilated room this is not going to be an issue to worry about.
Yes, you could trigger your smoke alarm but that happens if I cook a steak, too. When I used an oven I think mine went off once or twice from dozens of roasts.
PS. But I'll keep drinking my hipster juice, simplicity is enough for me.
For espressos, the full-city / medium-dark roast is maybe my favorite right now, and for other brews anything between a medium that's a little on the dark side and a dark roast. Acidic is fine, but it needs that body and deep flavor.
Personally I find Malabar and Vietnamese Robusta completely acceptable for espresso.
That's why I always drink my robusta as a blend, Italian style. I still get the initial kick of Robusta and its characteristic bitterness but Arabica is still there to fill in the gaps.
But I admit I didn't try that many pure Robustas, maybe some don't suffer that problem.
I actually dislike the Arabica taste when it's overpowering the Robusta taste - it just sour and disagreeable. A blend of about 10%-30% Arabica can be interesting, but I would not touch anything beyond that anymore.
And I also enjoy the 100%-Robusta espressos (like Borbone makes) very much, especially when I'm after a chocolatey type flavour with lots of thick, dark crema.
"Arabica = luxury" vs. "Robusta = low grade" might serve the bottom line of coffee planters and producers, but it's just as bad as saying "wine made with grape type A is worse than wine made with grape type B". It always depends on the source material and the execution.
I prefer light roasts… lighter than most available in a grocery store labeled “light roast”. And most of the time I prefer beans fermented with a “natural” or similar process—some or all of the fruit left on the bean as it ferments and dries, often producing fruity flavor notes ranging from subtle to holy shit are there actual blueberries in this!?
And I prefer my coffee with whole milk. Aforementioned barista was offended, persistently, when he failed to persuade me not to stick with my order for one such roast in a latte. I was, frankly, embarrassed for him. Gratefully, I’ve never encountered that sort of snobbery before or since.
Life is too short and too difficult already, ain’t nobody (well one person) got time for that kind of busybody judgement. Enjoy what you enjoy!
(I told the barista that I understood his opinion that the milk would overpower the delicate flavors of the coffee, and that I anticipated it would be my favorite latte ever. It was, and still is.)
The environmentalist me also appreciates that arabica supports better biodiversity, and it’s a shame that farms are tearing down arabica plants to replace with robusta.[1,2] Climate change is wreaking havoc. In places like Ethiopia it’s especially disconcerting since these heirlooms are native species. In other parts of the world as disparate as Indonesia or El Salvador, it’s not too surprising that climate change is exposing the crop’s inability to withstand environmental stress because these were imported during colonial times.
1-https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2020/06/04/why-bio... 2-https://www.reuters.com/world/the-great-reboot/if-your-coffe...
Can you elaborate? The article seems to point to the opposite, when arabica was nearly wiped out around the world by coffee leaf fungus as a result of the bio-homogeneity
They sell it in large bags here on the local markets.
(No idea what for, though. Pretty much everyone here just drinks sugary instant coffees...)
Vietnamese coffee is also usually 100% robusta (they grow most of the worlds supply).
[0]https://onan.be/farms/palthope-estate-india-b-b-chengappa/
https://www.deathwishcoffee.com/blogs/coffee-talk/the-rise-o...
I've found another coffee that tastes better, is shipped fresher, and has a much higher efficacy. Its called Seattle's Best #5. A bag is about 5 bucks. This stuff will have you vibrating off the desk.
What did you intend to communicate to the parent commenter? That the parent point is invalid?
Hmmm... I'm confused what exactly you're trying to communicate. Are you're saying one shouldn't talk about ethics in the context of discussing coffee prices?
Just for stimulation though, there's also theanine and theobromine you're missing for a better high.
It is rather sweet with arabica, is that less so with robusta? How would you compare the taste?