And a gift idea for all those insufferable yuppie baby boomers on your list.  Although this particular model may draw sniffs of disapproval and dismissal as a “glorified popcorn popper”.

We’ve had this for a month or so now, long enough to have run four or five pounds of various beans through it.  We haven’t found the perfect coffee yet but we keep looking.  It’s big enough to roast beans for 2 or 3 pots of coffee – just about enough to last us one day. We started with a sampler selection from Sweet Maria’s place. Lots of good info there.

I was looking forward to the smell of coffee roasting until I actually smelled coffee roasting.  It has a lot in common with the familiar fall aroma from days past when  burning piles of leaves were more common.  You will want to use this thing under an oven hood and maybe crack some windows open too.  It will set off smoke alarms.Here it is a few minutes into a cycle, the beans tumble about in the hot air blowing up from the bottom of the unit,  The top has outlet vents and a screen to catch the chaff from the beans.

And here it is further along, nearing the end, the beans are much darker.  There is a whole vocabulary to learn when discussing coffee roasting:  City roast, first crack, Vienna, full city plus, second crack, light roast– and on and on.  Some others that I just now made up:  Full city burnt, charcoal beans, and mm..mm…just the way Mrs J likes it.

We’ve just scratched the surface but we have been getting some pretty good coffee out of it.  Supermarket Folger’s just won’t cut it at all anymore.