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Did you ever have a really good cup of coffee?

I’m not talking about a cup of Folgers or Maxwell House, or some of the abysmal stuff made from dried powder “crystals” in little jars. I’m not even talking about a cup of Community Coffee from Baton Rouge.

I’m talking about a cup of coffee brewed at the right temperature from freshly roasted coffee beans…

It’s a steep hill, down which you will quickly roll, if you ever try the good stuff. If you’re lucky, you may find a local coffee shop that buys green coffee beans and roasts the beans that they use and sell. You might last a while, buying the good beans on occasion or for those special mornings or evenings.

Woe unto thee, however, if you ever decide to roast your own coffee. You’ll never be the same…

Some people “justify” the expense of premium quality green coffee beans because they can save money. Sure, you can save versus buying fresh-roasted beans at $7 per half-pound.

But, when you roast your own, you immediately step from having $2/pound coffee, all or most of the time, to $6+/pound coffee all the time.

And, you have some of the finest coffee imaginable!

Whether you roast in a special hot-air coffee roaster like an iRoast or a FreshRoast, or using an old hot-air popcorn popper, or a heat gun and a stainless steel bowl, or even a stainless drum in a gas grill (my way), you’ll have fun roasting good coffee and the pleasure of naturally flavorful fresh coffee.

As I write this, I’m sipping on a cup of El Salvador “The Juan Francisco Project” coffee beans from this year’s crop from the 2006 El Salvador “Cup of Excellence” competition. Thank goodness that Tom Owen, my coffee supplier (Sweet Maria’s), got some of this fine bean.

I bought 5 pounds but it tastes like I’m going to have to buy some more.

I just realized that I was out of my favorite blend of green coffee beans that I roast for espresso.

Sweet Maria’s, the small proprietorship whose site is close to heaven for home coffee roasters, has a bunch of new coffee beans.

I started looking at the new bean arrivals and decided i needed a little help. So, I opened up my email program and clicked on my Homeroast email folder — they sponsor the Homeroast mailing list for their customers.

Les, another customer, wrote yesterday and today about two of the new coffees. All too often, what Les likes, I like.

So, today’s order was 5 pounds of Sweet Maria’s “Espresso Monkey” blend, 5 pounds of the 2006 El Salvador “The Juan Francisco Project” green coffee beans and two pounds of the Brazil Cachoeira Yellow Bourbon green coffee beans.

What do I do with them? Read more about home roasting coffee on my TerryStockdale.com site (and read about espresso, brewing, grinders and more).

I had a special treat this afternoon. Some friends brought me some Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee beans to try. It had probably been 10 years since I had tried JBM and I haven’t bought any already-roasted coffee beans in almost five years.

I had been bragging about a fantastic lot of Harrar Horse (Lot 30) that I got from Sweet Maria’s, home of some of the finest finest home-roasting green coffee beans, roasters and coffee machines.

This Lot 30, a.k.a. “Blueberry Horse,” has significant natural flavors (not added flavorings!) of chocolate and blueberry.

I had written about the Blueberry Horse before and my friends were very interested in trying some.

Today, I took some freshly roasted Blueberry Horse to Walter & Karen, who had a surprise of some excellent JBM beans for me. Of course, I brought them home and immediately brewed some in my vacuum coffee pot — the brewer of the smoothest coffee I know.

It was fine. What can I say? It was fine. I’d brew another pot now, except then I’d be awake ALL night instead of just part of the night!

I learned something about my Cuisinart DCC-1200 “Brew Central” coffee pot this morning. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, but a necessary one.

First I ground some freshly roasted Yemen Mocha Mattari, which I roasted in my gas grill / RK Drum roaster earlier this week.

I put the freshly ground coffee into the Brew Central. I flipped the switch to start it.

But, when I came back about 10 minutes later to get some coffee — there wasn’t any!

Apparently I also have to put water in the coffee maker in order to brew coffee.

Cuisinart DCC-1200 12-Cup Brew Central Coffeemaker, Black and Stainless Steel (Kitchen) Manufacturer:Cuisinart

I finally broke down and ordered some more green coffee beans last week. I’ve been working seriously on reducing my bean inventory — which hit a high of 88 pounds! Since I was now under 20 pounds, and had been out of my favorite blend for espresso for several weeks, I finally ordered.

Of course, I ordered them from my favorite bean supplier Sweet Maria’s (www.sweetmarias.com).

The new beans arrived on Monday — 5 pounds of SM’s “Monkey Blend,” 2 pounds of Tanzania “Songea” and 5 pounds of the hit Ethopian Harrar Horse Lot 30, a.k.a. “Blueberry Horse.”

Blueberry? YES! This unflavored coffee has a natural aroma and taste that includes blueberry. It also has a strong chocolate smell and taste. Even my wife commented about that.

While some members of Sweet Maria’s Homeroast mailing list report that the coffee needed to rest for 3 days to develop the blueberry taste and aroma, I found it immediately.

Even as green coffee, I could detect a slight blueberry. Straight out of my roaster, it had strong aromas of chocolate and blueberry.

I tried it first yesterday monring using my Cuisinart DCC-1200 drip brewer. Awesome. Most of the pot went into my thermos so I could nurse it all day long.

Cuisinart DCC-1200 12-Cup Brew Central Coffeemaker, Black and Stainless Steel (Kitchen) Manufacturer:Cuisinart Released:

Then, I tried some more last night in my Bodum Santos vacuum pot stove-top brewer. Wow. Even better.

Bodum Santos Vacuum Coffeemaker (Kitchen) Manufacturer:Bodum Released:

I can’t wait to give it a try on the 3rd day!

If you’ve poked around on my main web site, you know that I’m a coffee fanatic. Well, maybe not a fanatic, but I like my espresso, my Americano’s (espresso + hot water for an American-style cup of coffee), my drip coffee and my vacuum pot coffee. Oh, yeah, I roast my own coffee, too.

I make my daily pot of brewed coffee in my Cuisinart Brew Central DCC-1200. This is a retro-look stainless and black model drip machine. Coffee had a noticeably better flavor out of this pot, as it heated the water to the proper temperature.

Cuisinart DCC-1200 12-Cup Brew Central Coffeemaker, Black and Stainless Steel (Kitchen) Manufacturer:Cuisinart Released:

I combined the BrewCentral with a SwissGold� filter. The flavor is much more concentrated than when I tried using either bleached or unbleached paper filters.

SwissGold Coffee Filter, KF-4 Universal Cone (Kitchen) Manufacturer:Frieling Released:

My mornings usually start with an eye-opening Americano from my Rancilio Miss Silvia espresso machine. While I’m drinking it, I fix my daily pot of drip coffee in the BrewCentral.

Why the Americano? It’s strong, it’s intense, and it’s fast!

Last year, I started brewing coffee via a Bodum vacuum pot. This became one of my regular brewing methods, along with my drip coffee maker, my espresso maker and my French press.

The vacuum pot is a step back to the past. Steam pressure from boiling water in a lower bowl pushes hot water into the top bowl, where it actually brews the coffee. Once you take the brewer off the heat (gas or electric), the temperature in the lower bowl drops. The steam cools, which lowers the pressure in the lower bowl — and sucks the coffee back from the top bowl to the lower bowl.

Well, just before Christmas, I oops’ed. While heating the water, I walked away and forgot it. I came back when I smelled burning coffee– after all the water had evaporated. Some time during the cooling process, the glass cracked.

One of my Christmas presents was a new vacuum pot to replace my older one — but Amazon had them back ordered. IT ARRIVED TODAY!

I use the Bodum Santos glass vacuum pot, not the electric model.

Bodum Santos Vacuum Coffeemaker (Kitchen) Manufacturer:Bodum

New York Times writer Michelle Slatella has a very good article today in the “Online Shopper” column.

In her case, her coffee grinder broke and she went on an emergency replacement shopping trip — to find bewildering salespeople and strange grinders.

Read her Establishing Some Ground Rules article for a very good writeup on the subject of coffee.

Don’t miss her blog entry for her followup article. She mentions Sweet Maria’s in the blog entry, too.

Sweet Maria’s is where I get my green coffee beans. Read about coffee roasting at Sweet Maria’s or in my home coffee roasting pages.

Christmas is almost here, and we are almost out of shopping time. For many of us, the hardest thing to do is to pick out a suitable gift.

Here are a few suggestions, from the Dream Toy of the Month section of my TerryStockdale.com web site:

• the hottest gift this Christmas, the new iPod Nano MP3 music player,
  in black or white, 4GB or 6GB;
• the Motorola Razr Cell Phone, also available in black for Cingular customers;
• a Parks Light Saber, high-quality Star Wars-type Replica Light Saber, machined from stainless steel or aircraft aluminum;
• a Star Wars Build Your Own Light Saber Kit;
• a 50-inch Plasma Television for the sports fan or movie fan of the house (including YOURSELF!);
• the Sony Playstation PSP portable game system that plays movies, too;
• Rancilio Silvia Espresso Machine;
• the Canon Digital Rebel XT 8MP Digital SLR Camera;
• a Crucial 1GB CompactFlash, with Rebate, for digital cameras and MP3 players;

For a less-expensive gift for a friend, relative or business contact:

• all-natural toffee, covered with chocolate, from Greenmar Toffee;
• a downloadable anti-spyware program (CounterSpy) for your favorite computer novice or experienced computer user ;
• Click2PDF, a PDF file creator that lets you “print” a PDF file from any computer application that can print;
• web hosting for their own web site, including a free domain name;
• DELIGHT YOUR COFFEE LOVER- Receive illy�s catalog + special offers for coffee gifts, machines, and cup collections;
• Click Here for Star Wars Movie Prop Replicas, Statues, Collectible Pins and More;

Don’t forget, if you are getting or giving a new computer for Christmas or for any other holiday, read my computer buying tips and computer security tips.

I've added the <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=585&amp;entry_id=134" title="http://www.terrystockdale.com/misc/rancilio_silvia_espresso_machine.shtml" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.terrystockdale.com/misc/rancilio_silvia_espresso_machine.shtml';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Dream Toy of the Month</a> for September 2005 to my main web site.<br />
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I have this Dream Toy and love it. It is the <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=585&amp;entry_id=134" title="http://www.terrystockdale.com/misc/rancilio_silvia_espresso_machine.shtml" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.terrystockdale.com/misc/rancilio_silvia_espresso_machine.shtml';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">Rancilio Silvia espresso machine</a>, which is a mid-to-high grade espresso machine for the home. <br />
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If you have only had espresso from the "steam toy" machines (in the $100 range), you have not tasted the real stuff. Most coffee shops, including the big name chains, don't get it right, either.<br />
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Either the coffee is too stale, the water temperature is cold, the water temperature is too hot, the coffee is not ground fine enough or the machine simply can not make the a good espresso. "Thin and Bitter" is <b>not espresso</b>. A proper espresso has a perceptable body, a mouth-feel. It even tastes of berries, citrus, chocolate or nuts or a combination of those.<br />
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If you are lucky enough to have a <i><b>good</b></i> coffee shop in town, see how they do at espresso. In Baton Rouge, my favorites (other than my kitchen) are Perks on Perkins Road and Highland Coffee by LSU.<br />
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