But for several years, I’ve really enjoyed the random espresso or latte here and there, gradually growing from thinking the convenience store ready-mix things were pretty good, to finally realizing the wonder of top notch espresso drinks thanks to Stellar Coffee at Capital Market in Charleston.
I ran across Stellar Coffee when I used to work in the free clinic business in the late 90s. I would have meetings right across the street where Charleston Health Right used to be and I would wander across the road during lunches and finally found Stellar Coffee. My favorite was the frozen Milky Way Latte. Got those in the summer and the hot ones in the winter. Great stuff and they still sell them.
After I moved to Kentucky I decided to try my own hand at making lattes and espressos and cappuccinos. I loved the strong flavors provided by these Italian drinks, but just never could duplicate the process with my little Hamilton-Beach steam driven espresso maker. I went without a Milky Way Latte for a few years until I found a coffee bistro at King’s Daughters Medical Center during a sales call one day. Needless to say, after that I made more “sales calls” to the bistro when I was in the vicinity to pick up one of those amazing drinks.
It wasn’t just those lattes I enjoyed so much, even a good cup of thick espresso was really great when I could get it, but there just weren’t any espresso shops or Starbucks floating around the majority of northeastern Kentucky a few years ago.
Last year, I finally decided to take the plunge and buy a steam-driven espresso machine from Amazon.com. I had read review after review and learned some of the reasons I just couldn’t get what I wanting from the coffee bean in my own home. As soon as it arrived and I ran the first few baskets through my wife and I realized we were on to something.
The coffee was potent and strong, thick and heavy, as long as I followed the time-proven Italian process for brewing espresso. When I deviated from that process, we ended up with the usual thin bitter American brew that we all know and used to love.
Don’t get me wrong, brewing good espresso takes time. Every morning I want a mug for the go, I usually get up a half-hour early, grind my beans and tamp my portafilter with super fine ground coffee. Then it takes about another five minutes to actually go through the brewing process — and this is only for one cup, or essentially four to five shots of espresso.
After a few months of experimenting with the different coffees you would find the local markets, I got the bug to start roasting my own coffee. I had read that the only way to get true fresh coffee is to roast your own. So for Christmas my lovely wife bought me a home roasting system with a variety of different coffee beans from all over the world — Costa Rica, Brazil, Ethiopia, Peru, Mexico, El Salvador and a host of various blends. All these beans were green you see and my responsibility was to roast them to perfection.
I had read the process prior to actually getting the roaster and I was fairly certain I knew what I was doing and to be honest, the first batches were pretty good. Varied roasts from light brown to charcoal, but they were okay. The flavor was amazing. Our favorite was the Costa Rican. It was mild but explosive with flavor.
After you get into fresh coffee roasting, you start to taste subtle flavors in each cup. Sometimes you may taste a little chocolate flavor, or a fruit flavor. Sometimes the cup may have a bittersweet flavor or a strong, long aftertaste, or no aftertaste at all. That’s the beauty of roasting your own coffee. You can roast the beans to your favorite roast to provide the exact amount of flavor you desire.
Each country produces its own unique flavor of coffee. I hope that one day I will have the experience to determine where a coffee is from just tasting the cup. So far I prefer what I call Island coffees such as Kona from Hawaii, Costa Rican, Jamaican and Puerto Rican. The more established coffees from Africa and Asia such as the Ethiopian, Somalian, Indian and Turkish don’t provide the kind of flavor I enjoy.
If you want a new hobby and love the coffee drinks you get at Starbucks and Stellar Coffee and all the other espresso shops around the world, then I suggest giving home roasting and espresso making a try. And if you happen to be around Price Hill sometime and see smoke rolling out of my house, don’t worry, I’m probably deep in the roast cycle.
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