rythms

roasting and roasting. cupping and cupping. so this is the stage not to roast for tastes, per se, but rather to grow in knowledge about the mechanics of the roaster. yes, i'm trying to set up a schedule for the roaster and cupping so that i'm doing everything at the same time each day to help eliminate randomness and to better compare apples to apples.

so today i built a master roaster log to chart what is being roasted and when. it also is like a "hit counter" for the roaster so i can know when it's time for maintenance.

i'm also building a roasting log that i will use to have more detail about each roast as it progresses. sort of like charting a graph in geometry. every roast is different. keeping track of each roast so you can recreate it later is essential to becoming a decent roaster. this log also has complete descriptions of the beans, origin and whatnot.

to do: build my own cupping log and build my own "receiving log" where i'll assign each coffee i receive (either as a sample or as a production coffee) a "brown number." this number will correlate with the roaster log...i can just write the brown number in the description log to know which coffee i am roasting when.

i cupped my first sumatras today and scored the first brazils today, both roasted yesterday. i'm trying to begin my log of what is tasting like what, what roast profiles best fit each coffee and how to describe them for the benefit of customers. but again, the mechanics of the roaster are still the order of the day and first priority. i'll cup them both again tomorrow and the next day to study the effects of time on each roast and help determine a peak for each. all of these are important factors to know if you're going to be a roaster.

know thy coffee. know thy roaster. eventually it will be know they customer. but that day still seems so far off.

meantime tomorrow i'm going to a friend's house to see if we can sketch out some label designs for coffee bags. that, and another friend is building me a website.

laying the groundwork for a real company.