They say that the most flavorful coffee comes with a longer
roast. I beg to differ.
If you’ve never had the opportunity to see coffee being
roasted from its raw state, you’re not missing much. Essentially, the beans go into what looks
like a commercial laundromat dryer for a set amount of time determined by the
desired outcome. While the beans are being tumbled, the little casings on each
one falls off and is dried at a much faster pace, and removed through a vent.
The color changes from green, to light brown, to dark brown in the most severe
cases. Burning it. You’re God Damn burning it! I learned all of this at Pedal
Pusher’s Café in Lanesboro many years ago. It was a mess, and I’m glad I wasn’t
responsible for cleaning it up. Or, at the very least, I didn’t clean it up.
Anyhow, I’m writing this because I want to portray for you
why I like light roast coffee. First, I think it has much more flavor. When it
comes to steak, I’m the same way. Some people would say that a steak that has
been charred has the most flavor, but what has really happened is the piquancy
has changed from meat, to char. They sell whole bags of charcoal if you’re into
that sort of taste. It is my belief that the closer you can get to raw when it
comes to anything perishable, the closer you are to its true essence.
I’m sitting here at Nina’s Coffee Café on Selby and Western
in St. Paul. I come here every weekend for a few reasons. First, it’s a good
place to sit down and type. I could do that anywhere, but the second reason is
that here, I’ve found the world’s most perfect cup of coffee. And although the
country from which it comes is different every week, I know that when I sit
down and take my first sip, I’ll taste something closer related to a berry than
a campfire. It’s sweet, bitter, and full of life. It’s not complex. The true
flavor of coffee has been hidden behind a dark roast for far too long, and I
love that they have this option here. Yes, other coffee shops have light
roasts, but there is no comparison for me: this is it.
One significant difference I’d like to point out is the
higher level of caffeine in a lighter roast. The good stuff is burned out more
the longer you roast. As I down the last sip of my first cup of the day, a bead
of sweat forms above my brow so I know it’s working. When I was in prison, many
of us would drink Folgers Crystals in relatively excessive fashion, because
that was the only form of buzz we could create. In St. Cloud especially, I
would mix water and crystals 50/50 and chug it because it would get me all
jittery, a feeling I had been familiar with up until my incarceration. I was
attempting to recreate a high. Of course that’s not possible, and the actual
result was just me sitting and sweating in a hot concrete and steel cage
writing out my life story with the pages sticking to my arms. There was no
relief from the heat in that place unless you had enough money to buy a fan,
which I did not. So, I would strip down to my tightey-whiteys, put a towel on
the cement floor, and pace back and forth. There was no relief, but it was something
to do. I remember being jealous of the gangsters and pimps who would make their
bitches[i]
send them money for T.V.s and fans, and comfortable clothing. If only I had
been a womanizer, maybe I could have enjoyed my stay in prison.
But I digress. It looks as if it’s going to be a beautiful,
if not hot day, so I’m going to go home and get Willie and head to the river.
[i]
This is not how I refer to women. It is exactly the term used by many men in
prison. In this case, the truth would probably sound racist coming from a white
male, so I will say that the people in prison that most commonly referred to
women as bitches were a dark roast.
