Shaving notes of the MaineYooper

Redemption is good for the soul. 

I mentioned earlier that I roast my beans. I think it’s amazing the journey that a coffee bean makes from bush to cup. Planting, growing, picking, pulping or drying, sorting and grading, packing and shipping, storage, roasting, grinding and brewing. It’s really remarkable how many things have to be done right so we can enjoy a superb cup of coffee and it can be ruined at every point along the journey. I feel the weight of responsibility when I roast. I want to honour every hard working person in the chain and I don’t want to be the guy that screws it up. It’s not just a cup of coffee, it’s a cup of coffee.

What a thoughtful post. It really resonated with me. Thank you!

Marko 

https://youtu.be/a01QQZyl-_I?si=QbciKxLmM87RPGvM

Some more coffee adventuring today. I am working with the Good Citizen Coffee Co. Louback Farm. I brewed a travel mug using the format for enhanced sweetness and a medium body and it was really good. Then I tried a single cup when I got home, and it was not so good. But I think I used too much coffee, falling back into that mindset of a better brew comes from more beans. Scaling it back a gram really made a difference on the second cup. It supposedly has flavor notes of milk chocolate, black cherry, and juicy (I know, right! Their description, not mine!) and I don't pick any of that up. I taste a mediocre coffee taste, nothing to write home about, and definitely not as good as the travel mug. 

Now these beans are supposed to be a medium roast, but they are dry and tan colored, whereas Jim's coffees' medium roasts tend to be darker and sometimes a little oil on them.

On the left, Good Citizen's Louback Farm (medium), and on the right, Jim's Organic Jo-Jo's Java (medium light)



Roasting is an art as well as science, so I figure definitions of "medium" and "medium-light" can vary.

Redemption is good for the soul. 

I mentioned earlier that I roast my beans. I think it’s amazing the journey that a coffee bean makes from bush to cup. Planting, growing, picking, pulping or drying, sorting and grading, packing and shipping, storage, roasting, grinding and brewing. It’s really remarkable how many things have to be done right so we can enjoy a superb cup of coffee and it can be ruined at every point along the journey. I feel the weight of responsibility when I roast. I want to honour every hard working person in the chain and I don’t want to be the guy that screws it up. It’s not just a cup of coffee, it’s a cup of coffee.

Your post immediately brought to mind a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh's book "How to Eat", which is part of his series Mindfulness Essentials:

"When you put a piece of fruit into your mouth, all you need is a little bit of mindfulness to be aware: “I am putting a piece of apple in my mouth.” Your mind doesn’t need to be somewhere else. If you’re thinking of work while you chew, that’s not eating mindfully. When you pay attention to the apple, that is mindfulness. Then you can look more deeply and in just a very short time you will see the apple seed, the beautiful orchard and the sky, the farmer, the picker, and so on. A lot of work is in that apple!"

Hanh, Thich Nhat. How to Eat (Mindfulness Essentials Book 2) . Parallax Press. Kindle Edition.

The work weekend shave duties were handled very well by the Yaqi Romulus, a Feather ProGuard blade, Mystic Water Soaps Sensitive Skin, and various brushes. Excellent shaves with no drama. Saturday I had a small weeper that was my fault. Today I used the aluminum Overlander with a new vintage Personna Platinum Chrome blade, Murphy & McNeil Nil, and the Techichi Shave brush, The Hive. Awesomeness abounded. What else can I say, the Overlander is fantastic, whether I use the stainless steel or the aluminum version.

On the coffee front, I did some reading and got schooled on under/over extraction. Seems I was under extracting my current coffee from Trade Coffee, a bag of light medium roasted Brazilian beans from Good Citizen Coffee (Nashville, TN). I made the following changes and had a cup with no sourness, just too heavy of a body. I made the grind finer, I used almost boiling water, and I did the 60% pour in 3 parts. I have been fiddling around with those variables today, and I think I hit on the one to get a cup I like. I had to bump up the grind size as the flow through had been too slow, and I decreased the temp by 1C degree, to 98C from 99C. I still did three pours for the final 60% (using the 4:6 method) and I liked it, no sourness, and the body seemed where I like if for mouth feel. It took me 5 different tries (no, I can't hear colors, as I dumped 4 of the cups after a few sips, and am not overly caffeinated!). 

In astro news, Tim MilkCratehad posted about is telescope and I got interested in looking up again, after almost 6 years of saying I was too busy with what we were dealing with at home. But the other day, my lovely wife insisted that I get involved with the local club I was a member of and go to a star party soon. Well, soon is this Saturday and she was genuinely excited for me. Now if the clouds will cooperate, it should be a good time. And, I found a couple of good condition Dobsonian telescopes for sale, so I may get a push to scope and let some one else deal with the equatorial mounted scope that I currently have.

Eric,

It sounds like you are making good progress on your coffee exploration!
I went through three brews this morning myself.
I have found that sometimes a brew that initially tastes bad, if I let it sit for a while, it can redeem itself and turn out drinkable.
I just start my next brew in a different mug and occasionally taste the first cup every once in a while to see if there was any positive change.
Then again, there are some cups that are so bad from the start, you know there is no redemption there.

Enjoy!

Eric,

It sounds like you are making good progress on your coffee exploration!
I went through three brews this morning myself.
I have found that sometimes a brew that initially tastes bad, if I let it sit for a while, it can redeem itself and turn out drinkable.
I just start my next brew in a different mug and occasionally taste the first cup every once in a while to see if there was any positive change.
Then again, there are some cups that are so bad from the start, you know there is no redemption there.

Enjoy!

Thanks to good lab book skills at recording, I was able to repeat the best brew from yesterday and had another good cup of a coffee was all set to dispose of!

A great shave this morning, but I forgot to take a photo, so I have no proof that I have a new brush. Mike HighSpeed kindly gifted me one of those cool looking Semogue 1305 boar brushes! And it was nicely broken in! Like I said, a great shave was had. Thank you, Mike!

A great shave this morning, but I forgot to take a photo, so I have no proof that I have a new brush. Mike HighSpeed kindly gifted me one of those cool looking Semogue 1305 boar brushes! And it was nicely broken in! Like I said, a great shave was had. Thank you, Mike!

    You're very welcome Eric. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

A great shave this morning, but I forgot to take a photo, so I have no proof that I have a new brush. Mike HighSpeed kindly gifted me one of those cool looking Semogue 1305 boar brushes! And it was nicely broken in! Like I said, a great shave was had. Thank you, Mike!

I really enjoyed my Semogue 1305 brush!