Free Starbucks @ Noon Eastern/9 Pacific 4/8/08

[waerloga]

For a few dollars less I can purchase green beans and roast them myself. My roasting set up cost <$100; quality single variety green beans run me anywhere from $3-$7 a pound shipped. The rig certainly paid for itself in just a couple of months and the investment of time in roasting my own is trivial (about 12-15 minutes/lb).

I use a set up like this.

Yup, that is what I plan my next step to be. As it stands now I get my coffee around $10-$15 a pound. I'm looking to go the route of a hot air popcorn maker for my first attempt, < $30 and by all accounts should work acceptably well.

I bet it's hard to beat the freshness of a batch you roast yourself

 

[netsurfr]

I tried a cup. Awful. had a look @ the beans - a perfect roast for those who like oily charcoal. They had to have taken these well into or even all the way through second crack. Fresh roasted? Only if you consider 13 days since the roast date (proudly displayed BTW) fresh...

Pretty much undrinkable black. Barely tolerable with cream and sugar.

Well, allright then. We have another who appreciate the roast and duration between roast and serving on the forum. If coffee is not ground and served within about 2-3 days of roasting, it has lost much of its character. If you look at the beans at Starbucks, the only character they have is being burnt. Hence, the predominant flavor of charcoal.
Sorry, if I sound like a coffee snob. But, you have never experienced coffee until you have had really good beans roasted however you like them (light roast to expresso roast) and then ground within 1-2 day at the time of serving. You will taste flavors that you did not think were possible in coffee.
OK, now I'm off of my soapbox!
As I said before, I take nothing away from the marketing machine of Starbucks. They have done a great job and continue to do so.
But, there is some really great coffe to experience and you can do most of it yourself by roasting your coffee at home in small batches and grinding it at the time of serving.

 

[Ltltony]

(light roast to expresso roast)

The dark "Espresso roast" is a US thing.
Italian espresso blends are characterized by their lighter roast and, surprisingly to North Americans, a small (5 - 10%) amount of high grade robusta coffee beans are often included.
The lightest of the espresso roasts is called a Full City Roast which is the darkest brown that a coffee bean can be roasted without oils developing on the surface of the bean. This is the common roast for espresso in Northern Italy.
Roasting the coffee beans to a darker brown, just past a full city roast, produces visible surface oils on the coffee bean. This roast is called Vienna Roast or Light French. This is more typical of espresso blends found farther south in Italy.
Roasting coffee beans nearly black - with a full coat of surface oils - is generally referred to as French or Italian Roast and is what most of the US thinks of as espresso roast.

As far as Starbuck burning their beans. The argument doesn't make sense to me. They sell a ton of different beans all roasted to different levels. Go get a bag of Guatemala Antigua or Columbia Narino Suprema and explain how that is burnt? Some of their roast taste very burnt but that is what French or Spanish roast is. Not everyone likes their coffee the same and it isn't a right or wrong kind of thing.
I understand those that want a very lightly roasted bean to taste as much of the nuances as possible. I'm sure many of them drink room temperature beer so that the cold doesn't mask the flavors. I can respect that.

I can't respect the (not the roast I like = crap) attitude.
Is any big company (Starbucks or otherwise) ever going to be as good as roasting your own to the exact level you like? Of course not. How could they complete with you customizing it to your own taste. They did however push a decent chunk of the US away from the folgers and gas station crap they use to drink. They even pushed McDonalds into vastly improving their coffee.

I could probably make my own shaving soap to perfectly fit my needs (some of you have) and it would work better for me than any pre-made soap I could buy. But the pre-made soaps I buy now are a huge jump up from the Edge Gel or Barbasol foam I use to use. They aren't perfect but still really good and far better than the old crap.

 

[j6ppc]

As far as Starbuck burning their beans. The argument doesn't make sense to me. They sell a ton of different beans all roasted to different levels. Go get a bag of Guatemala Antigua or Columbia Narino Suprema and explain how that is burnt? Some of their roast taste very burnt but that is what French or Spanish roast is. Not everyone likes their coffee the same and it isn't a right or wrong kind of thing.
I understand those that want a very lightly roasted bean to taste as much of the nuances as possible. I'm sure many of them drink room temperature beer so that the cold doesn't mask the flavors. I can respect that.

I've found starbucks coffees to be uniformly overroasted with most varital nuances lost to the degree of roast they seem to choose. They pretty much taste alike to me. The flip side of this argument is that their customers like and buy the stuff and sbux is just catering to their customers.

Personally I prefer my coffee roasted no darker than the merest onset of vanguard 2nd crack (Full City+). Generally speaking most of what I drink is roasted to City / Full City though. Tastes vary as noted above and few things are more subjective than one's food and drink preferences.

I did find that my palate evolved and became more sensitive to nuances when I started brewing my own beer. Same thing happened when I started to roast my own coffee. Unsurprisingly my cigar palate changed quite a bit as well when I started smoking a broader variety of cuban cigars.

I saw that Trader Joes has recently started offering an "american" roast coffee - tried it and was pleasantly surprised as it is one of the few non micro offerings that includes a city roast in their assortment of beans.

 

[Mr-Scruffy]

Has anyone tried the new coffee? How is it?

I have been buying Jim's Organic Hazelnut Coffee. I find it to to be one of the best I have tried.

 

[analog_kid]

The dark "Espresso roast" is a US thing.
Italian espresso blends are characterized by their lighter roast and, surprisingly to North Americans, a small (5 - 10%) amount of high grade robusta coffee beans are often included.
The lightest of the espresso roasts is called a Full City Roast which is the darkest brown that a coffee bean can be roasted without oils developing on the surface of the bean. This is the common roast for espresso in Northern Italy.
Roasting the coffee beans to a darker brown, just past a full city roast, produces visible surface oils on the coffee bean. This roast is called Vienna Roast or Light French. This is more typical of espresso blends found farther south in Italy.
Roasting coffee beans nearly black - with a full coat of surface oils - is generally referred to as French or Italian Roast and is what most of the US thinks of as espresso roast.

As far as Starbuck burning their beans. The argument doesn't make sense to me. They sell a ton of different beans all roasted to different levels. Go get a bag of Guatemala Antigua or Columbia Narino Suprema and explain how that is burnt? Some of their roast taste very burnt but that is what French or Spanish roast is. Not everyone likes their coffee the same and it isn't a right or wrong kind of thing.
I understand those that want a very lightly roasted bean to taste as much of the nuances as possible. I'm sure many of them drink room temperature beer so that the cold doesn't mask the flavors. I can respect that.

I can't respect the (not the roast I like = crap) attitude.
Is any big company (Starbucks or otherwise) ever going to be as good as roasting your own to the exact level you like? Of course not. How could they complete with you customizing it to your own taste. They did however push a decent chunk of the US away from the folgers and gas station crap they use to drink. They even pushed McDonalds into vastly improving their coffee.

I could probably make my own shaving soap to perfectly fit my needs (some of you have) and it would work better for me than any pre-made soap I could buy. But the pre-made soaps I buy now are a huge jump up from the Edge Gel or Barbasol foam I use to use. They aren't perfect but still really good and far better than the old crap.

I don't think Starbucks hate comes from the real connoisseurs of the bean. For me personally, it's the folks who think that Starbucks is the end all be all of coffee. The self proclaimed "experts" who think anything in a white foam cup with a green seal is ambrosia of the gods.

In my personal experience, Starbucks isn't too bad when compared to your other options are the grocery store(it's better than Folgers I guess). I used to buy it from time to time and it's certainly drinkable. But it doesn't hold a freaking candle to home-roasted coffee!

 

[stetienne]

So has anyone actually said how the new Pikes Place tastes (other than someone who finds all of their beans taste burnt)?