Lovely to see you gracing these fora again. Please do call by more often.
As you are the person who introduced me to my love of Ethiopian coffee, I have much to thank you for.
Am I to assume that you prefer Yirgacheffe over Sidamo?
Thanks. /hat tip
I shalst endeavor to be more present....I will be honest, at times I find The Thread hard to keep up with...I come here and see 50 new posts or the like, and as I owe it to the denizens to listen before talking, I think "oh I will come back and read all of this later." Then, when I return, there are 100 posts. You get the idea. But, point taken.
ETA: I do not mean to suggest that we'all should post less. Far from it. I read every post. I just do not always respond. Why? I admit it......I am the world's worst and slowest typist. Honestly. Any one of you could kick the snot out of me with 9 of your fingers in splints......and maybe 10.
Ah! Coffee! Well, always happy to chat about that. You know, to a hack like me, I'll take whatever. But, if I have a choice, for most non-espresso preparations I would probably take Yirgacheffe as my top choice. Not my
only choice, but my
top choice (oh where, oh where, have my beloved pacamaras gone?). But, for the most holy of all cups, the double ristretto, if I limit the picks to Ethiopia, I would have to go with a Harrar. Dry processing works better for ristrettos (and espressos) I think, as it brings out the complexity more than wet processing. Of course, wet processing brings out the "wham" of a Yirgacheffe. So I guess I will take complex in a ristretto and "wham" in a Chemex. Does that make any sense? Probably not. I will think about it.
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Who is this addressed to?
I ask, merely because this thread is home and host to many absolute aficionados and exceedingly experienced experts in the fine art of coffee grinding, who have been happy to save their expertise with those of us who are relatively new to this.
Ah, well, I consider myself just a coffee hack, really, but that never stopped me from commenting!
This frozen beans thing was all the rage 15 or 20 years ago. (I am a bit surprised -- disappointed -- that this appears in the NYT to be "news"). There was furious debate, which I would basically sum up as:
Arguments if favor: if you truly suck at grinding and have seriously crappy equipment, then short term freezing of your beans might help, as it can cover up a multitude of sins by promoting uniformity.
Arguments contra: if you have any skill at all and even passingly ok equipment, freezing is a horrible idea, as the water freezing in the beans causes cracks in ways that are at least unpredictable and almost certainly flavor altering if not killing.
Ultimately, as I recall, the National Coffee Association came out with a statement against freezing, at least for the short term, and that pretty much ended the debate. I guess, for a while.
As I am consigned to try and try and try, and forever chase The God Shot, I will admit that I have tried bean freezing before, long ago. The key part of that sentence, of course, is what I did not write: that I kept doing it.
Of course, as always, if someone wants to freeze their beans...hey, have a good time.
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It's a Maximatic by Olympia
1986 vintage.
It's nice!
