Tanzanian Peaberry coffee beans are about the size of a pencil eraser. I’ve got a tad under a pound of them at home, sealed in a bag in my pantry. They’re still green – well, more like a greenish-brown, really – because they haven’t been roasted yet. This morning I scooped about six spoonfuls into my roaster and turned it on while I showered. After 15 minutes the house was filled with the aroma of freshly-roasted coffee. If you’ve not smelled that, and you like coffee, you are missing out. It’s like the smell of coffee beans, or a nice coffee house, but smokier, richer, earthier. Enormously pleasant. I took the beans, still hot, and whirled themin my grinder. Steam was released and condensed back to water in the underside of the domed lid, all in ten seconds. The coarsly ground beans were then transferred into my French Press where they sat in nearly-boiling water for about five minutes. Twenty minutes total from raw bean to brew. To the coffee in my cup I added a spoonful of the freshly whipped cream I’d made for my strawberries and stirred with a piece of freshly cut sugar cane (a gift from my neighbors just returned from Florida. They also brought some segments that were starting to sprout, which I promptly planted in the side yard.).

Some people drink coffee to wake them up. For those folks, a Mr. Coffee pot with a timer is the perfect thing. Myself, I never liked the taste of coffee until recently. When I discovered coffee drunk for the sheer pleasure of it rather than as a caffeine vehicle, I realized what I was missing. And now that I can quickly go from green bean to hot liquid, I see (and smell, and taste) what I was missing at even the nice coffee houses. If you like coffee, there’s no reason why you can’t do this too. See my April 2nd entry for all the information you need. Likely, you can drink your home-roasted coffee for cheaper than you’re paying for Folgers grounds now, if you’ve got a hot air popcorn popper lying around. (Note to Wendell: just another example of my cheap-ness.)