Peter and I just returned from a visit to California. I could write about how fantastic it was to see everyone, how much fun it was to get together, see the friends and family, but this week, I’d like to introduce you to Elli.
Elli is 51. She has an amazing antique furniture collection and a couple of pretty cool dogs. Oh, and Elli roasts her own E-Bay bought coffee beans in her back yard. Seriously. And you won't believe how 'simple 'it is.
Okay, that may not sound like too much excitement, but we were privy to her secrets, and the tools of her trade. Let me remind you of Elli's words - as she took us to her back yard picnic table. “This is a simple process.” Remember this.
First, Ellie shows us a 1950’s caramel corn maker, with an agitator at the bottom to keep things moving. She plugs in a digital thermometer and tells us she’s just going to warm things up a bit. She puts a springform pan around the hot plate (don't forget to remove the bottom of the springform pan first), and covers it all with a pressure-cooking-lid-looking thing and lets it all warm up for a few moments.
Next, Elli drops raw coffee beans (no taste, no smell that I can discern) into the contraption until the agitator starts moving back wards. She pulls out about a dozen beans, because the agitator shows you how many beans to put in by its movement. Huh?
Elli then puts the lid on her home-made roaster and tells us that the beans will go through a series of smells, none of them pleasant. She also tells us that we are waiting to hear the first crack of the beans as they are roasting. Simple? What?
We are all hushed as Elli tells us we are now listening for a crack. As the beans heat, they crack (it sounds like popcorn), but this is only the first crack. And Ellie is right; the beans smell like they are burning. Not a nice aroma at all. In fact, based on the smell, I could give up coffee completely.
Now that the first crack and three or four acrid smells have assaulted our nostrils, Elli says we are waiting for the second crack of the beans, which is, by the way, a very distinctive sound that is quite different from the first crack. Okay, truthfully, I couldn't hear anything different at all, but if Elli says it happened, then I beleive her.
I ask why these husk like things are flying all over. Ellie shows us the (simple) holes she’s drilled into the sides of her springform pan (minus bottom). These are so the bean chaff can fly out. The holes are bigger than the chaff, so it can easily separate itself from the beans as they agitate, smell bad and molt.
I don’t know about you, but I think chaff flying out of any size hole sounds like a bad thing, and about this time, I think I have landed in the Ozarks at a distillery of one of my Hatfield ancestors.
The second crack has come and gone, and now our nostrils are being assailed with an amazing aroma that makes my brain scream ‘give me coffee NOW!’
After the beans have been cooled with a shop-vac colander contraption, the beans are ready. They find their way to the grinder, to the percolator, to my cup. I take a sip and sigh, wondering if I can recreate this contraption at my house in Canada. But let's face it, I'm no MacGyver Elli.
Elli, here’s to you, for one of the best cups of coffee I have ever tasted. But girl, that process is anything but simple.
