Mahal Coffee Roast Log Blog

Beans: Papua New Guinea Baroida Morita Varietal: Arusha Elevation: 1700-2300 masl Process: Washed Retailer: Sweet Maria's Pre-Roast Weight: 231 grams Roast Attempt: 39th Roast Date/Time: July 18, 2021, 1030 CDT I was excited by the sound of this one.  I've said before that East Africa is my favorite region, and it is, but I've had several PNGs in the last year that have been some of my favorite coffees period, due to the variety of flavors appearing in the cup.  The description on the Sweet Maria's website mentioned "vanilla taffy aroma, cup sweetness has palm sugar and molasses, accented by fruited notes of orange, tamarind, and candied lemon, with finishing hints of aromatic tobacco and spice."  That's a ton potentially going on and sounds right up my alley! As usual, I started the roaster at 18:00 (one-pound setting), P5 (100% power to the heating element), with manual control. Chamber Temperature 16:00 - 134 14:00 - 206 13:00 - 231 12:00 - 253...

Beans: Ethiopia Organic Yirgacheffe Chelbesa Danche Varietal: Ethiopian Heirloom Elevation: 1900-2200 masl Process: Washed Retailer: Sweet Maria's Pre-Roast Weight: 235 grams Roast Attempt: 38th Roast Date/Time: July 4, 2021, 1000 CDT Recently - as chronicled in my other coffee blog - I tried some Ethiopian coffee, also a washed Yirgacheffe, from a roaster in Iowa.  It wasn't terrible or anything, but I felt distinctly underwhelmed by the flavor profile.  Having now been doing my own roasting for a while, and having underroasted several batches early in the process, I was suspicious that I was seeing and tasting the hallmarks of a roast that had just not quite gotten there.  If that is what happened, I'm not offended or anything - nobody's perfect - but it seemed like the first time I had spotted, or at least felt like I had spotted, an underdeveloped coffee done by somebody else. The upshot is that when it came to picking the second coffee I was going to try roas...

Beans: Tanzania Nitin Estate AA Varietal: Kent Elevation: 1600 masl Process: Washed Retailer: Sweet Maria's Pre-Roast Weight: 230 grams Roast Attempt: 37th Roast Date/Time: July 4, 2021, 0730 CDT Roasting in the back room at my in-laws' means that on a day where the temperature was going to get up into the 90s, I needed an early start - the climate control isn't super great back there, plus I open the back door to get some ventilation.  So since I was up, I decided to get a roast going at 7:30 in the morning.  The beans I chose were part of my most recent order - sure I still have seven or eight pounds kicking around from orders I placed months ago in Kansas, but I was desperate to get my hands on some Yemeni green coffee before Sweet Maria's sold out of it, and my minimum order is four pounds at once to justify the shipping cost.  So in addition to the Yemen, I ordered a Tanzania, a Kenya, and a Papua New Guinea.  It was the first of those three I decided to ro...