Home Coffee Roasting: Romance and Revival
Written: Oct 01 '05
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Excellent coverage of roasting from which bean to select to the importance of cooling.
Cons: This isn't an invaluable reference, but it's damn good anyway.
The Bottom Line: The Bottom Line likes roasting coffee, but isn't allowed to since "the incident".
|
|
|
| Guildencrantz's Full Review: Kenneth Davids - Home Coffee Roasting: Romance and... |
This is a superbly unique cook book which explores that side of a daily indulgence that most people never attempt: roasting coffee. As with most true cook books this one is less about recipes and more about science, history, and art. Although you will most likely find Home Cooffee Roasting: Romance and Revival tucked away with "appliance" books such as those for bread machines and crock pots, rather than along side The Bread Bible or Sauces with which it has far more in common than the recipe books that will undoubtedly surround it.
Kenneth Davids mentions, and it is proclaimed quite frequently by coffee connoisseurs, that coffee is more like wine than other foods. Much like wine grapes develop based on the soil and weather they are grown in coffee beans also react to these conditions, because of this understanding the bean is as important as understanding the roasting procedure. What Davids does in Home Coffee Roasting is explain all the factors (okay, there might be a few missing) that go into making a great coffee.
Understanding a plant inherently involves understanding its origins. Although Davids does open with a discussion of why people choose to roast their own coffee—hint: it involves quality and flavor—he immediately follows that by diving into the history of coffee in Ethiopia and Yemen. The discussion covers everything from early cultivation and coffee drinks—made from the fruit and green beans—to speculation about how coffee first became roasted. This history is extended from the tribal treat of travelers into Turkey and finally into Europe. Along with following the beans Davids talks about the different brewing and serving methods.
Of course the book also covers the roasting methods that are used throughout history. From the basic spoon in the fire to the modern convection systems Davids covers both home and commercial roasting techniques. It's at this point where the discussion also starts to turn up on the benefits of home roasting. The fact that coffee doesn't store well is played as a large factor in why home roasting is so appealing.
Once the history lesson is through the real discussion of the beans begins. Davids spends a lot of time talking about where the beans are grown and how they are treated. He provides generalized overviews of coffees from Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Indo Asia explaining how the flavors of each region tend to vary due to growing conditions as well as processing. Since the coffee bean grows in a "cherry" it must be removed, and these processing methods ultimately effect the flavor of the bean; to knowledgeably purchase coffee for roasting all of this information is important to know, or at least be aware of.
Fully half of the book is devoted to this discussion of history, coffee trends, coffee growing, coffee bean processing, and bean influences on flavor. The actual discussion of roasting itself is fairly minimal, but it's a simple process. Davids covers the basic chemistry of roasting discussing the different stages and how bean flavor is effected. To this he does discuss the effects of time and temperature, but, due to the variable nature of beans and equipment, specifics are hard to come by.
One of the things that Davids does extremely well is cover the currently (2003, but still current in 2005) available for home roasting. What makes this discussion so excellent is that Davids covers the commercially available products yet still discusses other techniques ranging from roasting in an oven to using a popcorn popper.
Since coffee is such a subjective experience Davids also spends a fair amount of time discussing the different ways that coffee is discussed. He covers both the different ways of describing the stages of roasted coffee and how to describe the qualities of that coffee when brewed. The techniques for cupping and comparing different roasts and brews is also covered so that readers can systematically approach the craft of roasting.
Once Davids has covered roasting and cooling the beans he spends a little time, quite little, discussing brewing. One of the things that he discusses is flavoring coffee. The only actual recipes that you'll find in this book are in this section and cover recipes for mixing dried citrus peel, spices, and other flavors into the coffee for brewing.
The final section of this book is a rather extensive list of references. These references cover everything from where to get green beans and equipment to further sources of information. These twenty pages cover lots of information that many coffee enthusiasts will probably find interesting, including references for magazines and the Specialty Coffee Association of America.
While this isn't the definitive guide to all things coffee—that would undoubtedly be William Ukers's All About Coffee—this is probably the best, if not the only, book on roasting that you're likely to find at your local bookstore. While this isn't an invaluable reference it was definitely a good read when I started getting into home roasting and I highly suggest it to anybody thinking of moving their coffee to the next level.
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Guildencrantz
|
 - Top 1000 |
|
Location: Boulder, CO
Reviews written: 405
Trusted by: 160 members
About Me:
My coffee cup has Smurf escape instructions in it.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.