a sweetmarias wee-blog

Three new coffees, including a Gesha arrival! Panama Esmeralda Gesha -Mario Carnaval Lot , Panama Carmen “Siete Dias de Bellota” , and El Salvador Siberia Estate Pacamara We’ll start off with Panama Esmeralda Gesha -Mario Carnaval Lot. We are limiting sales to 1-lb so everyone gets to try this special coffee. Keep the roast light and remove the quakers for a berry mix profile and jasmine accents. Next up we’d like to announce the Panama Carmen “Siete Dias de Bellota”, another atypical Panama that has been dry-processed producing almond, and dried fruit tastes in the cup. Next up is a more traditional Central with El Salvador Siberia Estate Pacamara. This large-bean has a brown sugar taste and juicy fruits flavor profile and takes a wide range of roasts. .. With our new review format, Tom will be adding more details about the particular farm alongside cupping notes so make sure to click-through to the full descriptions.

When we first started selling the Fresh Roast SR 300 and SR 500, we recommended a certain technique for an even roast; namely, to remove  the chaff collector  and stir the coffee during the initial stages of the roast when the beans are heaviest.  It turns out that this results in an inordinate amount of chaff getting sucked back into the base of the roaster (because the fan is drawing in air to cool the roaster) and over time it chokes the unit.  Eventually the unit will no longer get hot and the chaff in the base presents a fire hazard.

So we have modified our recommendation and suggest you do what Tim Skaling of Fresh Beans does to get an even roast: Run the machine for 1 minute with beans, then hit the COOL button for 30 seconds. Then turn the machine back on to finish the roast. With very dense beans, use the COOL cycle twice during the roast sequence. If you do remove the chaff collector during the roast, be sure to replace it as soon as possible.  You might also want to open the base of the unit from time to time and vacuum out any chaff that has found its way inside (sort of a good idea with any machine). We have updated the annotations on the YouTube videos too on our Fresh Roast Details page.

We have a very limited quantity of both of these unique South American coffees to add for the weekend: Brazil Daterra Farms – Sweet Blue,  and Ecuador El Guabo -Teofilo Jimenez Microlot. Brazil Daterra Farms – Sweet Blue is a new offering (from a familiar farm) for Sweet Maria’s, a tad sweeter than the Sweet Yellow with wonderful bittering notes balancing a mild blueberry. Limit 2 lbs.  Ecuador El Guabo – Teofilo Jimenez Microlot is one of the most amazing Ecuador lots we’ve come across, hopefully a sign of things to come in the future as we continue to work with small producers in this country.  This lot features true “Typica” character with floral sweetness and ripe orange notes–limit 1 lb. Have a great weekend!

Bonne Fête! It’s another new coffee day! Today we are adding some great wet-process coffees. (We will have some more dry-process selections to round out our offerings in a week or so) … Starting off we have the Hawaii Kona -Kowali Farm Typica, … a coffee and farm folks have really enjoyed in years past. Look for a refined sugar sweetness, silky body, and caramel-honey roast tastes. Limit 5-lb per customer please! … Next up is the Sumatra Lintong Dolok Sanggul, another low-acid chocolatey crowd-pleaser from Indonesia. This particular varietal has a spicy black tea accents as well. Lastly we are adding a special process decaf: Peru FTO CO2 Decaf . This was decaffeinated using the C02 technique and the cup is an aggressive pungent cup at dark roasts with a bright and clean fruit note at lighter stages.

It is probably no surprise  that we have an internal debate here :  the Website Minimalists vs the Website Maximalists. The Minimalists want the website to be streamlined and easy to navigate; the Maximalists want to keep tons of information, even if it pertains to a product that has been discontinued.  Most of you can likely guess which side Tom comes down on (hint: this is the person who comes home from a two-week origin trip with 800 photos!).  But even Tom and I have to admit that articles and photos have piled up over the years in a disorganized way, or more disorganized than even we want. So we re-vamped the Coffee Library page to make information easier to access. More changes will be underway in terms of how we manage the travelogues and make the Tiny Joy back issues available.  No purging, just rearranging the furniture.  Hope you enjoy it. – Maria

Hope everyone had a nice holiday weekend! Is everyone rested and ready for five exciting new offerings today?! OK, here goes… Heading things off is a new coffee/farm for us: the Costa Rica Chirripo -Finca Alaska. This is unique in its sweetness and brightness for a Crestones coffee and we’re happy to have this intensely fruited cup in our arsenal. Next we have El Salvador Matalapa -Tablon El Amate, a versatile coffee from light to espresso roast, this is from a great older farm that we’ve enjoyed for quite a few years. Look for orange citrus and buttery body from this Pacas type coffee. We are excited to add another Kenya to our inventory… the Kenya Kirinyaga Karimikui, a complex array of brown sugar, fruit notes, and caramel with a syrupy sweet body to boot. We haven’t seen quality Jamaican Blue Mountain in awhile, but this JBM, grown in Guatemala is special indeed. Fans will remember Guatemala Finca La Bella JBM Cultivar‘s great body, toffee, caramel, and restrained brightness. Look for lemon and apple brightness at the lighter roasts. Last on the list is the Ethiopia Organic Shakiso Wet Process with moderate brightness, caramel and jasmine tones, and lemon scent. Phew! Those summaries were a mouthful. Check out Tom’s full reviews too!

Tom has been talking about this for a while … that we don’t have enough basic information about color changes in roasting. Understanding the stages of the roast is fundamental to successful roasting; it is hard to emphasize it enough.   He shot a macro-image video under very strong light to show color changes during the roast process.  He emphasizes the development of each stage (in both air and drum roasts)  and what you can expect to see and hear.  The end of the roast is crucial; in the 15 to 30 seconds from first crack  moving toward second crack, your roast very quickly goes from City+ to Full City+ (and beyond!). Make sure to pull up a stool and pay attention to the end of the roast not matter what method you use.

I’ve added this video to our Visual Guide to Roast page as a permanent fixture. Hope you find it useful. – Maria

Five new arrivals today, two of them Espresso related. Let’s start out with the one everyone has been waiting for: Sweet Maria’s Liquid Amber Espresso Blend is back! The Vienna roast is a potent and savory cup with chocolate/noir tastes; this blend is perfect also for milk drinks. We also finally have a quality robusta back in stock for espresso blends: Panama Guyami Indian Robusta. Folks will remember baker’s chocolate in this potent cup and best to keep these dark and in espresso blends at 15%. Rounding things out are some excellent drip coffees starting with Hawaii Ka’anapali DP Maui Moka 16 Screen with its honey and maple sugar flavors and hint of cocoa. Don’t let the tiny screen size fool you – thick body and chocolate flavors here. The El Salvador Finca San Gabriel Bourbon is a classic Bourbon cup with mild citrus, cane sugar, and dense body. Look for even more chocolate and body at darker roasts! Lastly is the ‘mutt’ of the pack,… literally. It’s Colombia – Los Chuchos de Tolima, a mutt-like combination of the best of the best of Colombian microlots. Not the spicy sweetness in the cup with a sweet/savory quality that is very balanced. Check out Tom’s full reviews as you click-through!