Neal Wilson ✅ @neal@social.typica.us

As for the dark roast, this is one of the lighter dark roasts and I'm pushing it fast enough to get to the high temperatures needed to get the dry distillation notes that dark roast drinkers are looking for while also preserving some of that fruitiness (moving it more to the aftertaste) and sweetness that I like about the coffee. That combination brings a complexity to the flavor often missing from dark roast coffees, making it an excellent gateway to the dark side.

The medium roast is super juicy with a lot of the coffee fruit flavor coming out. Going lighter, this coffee expresses as overly citric, not especially well balanced, and can easily end up having a drying effect on the mouth, which is not a particularly nice quality for a beverage to have. People who are overly sensitive to ferment flavors should avoid the medium roast as it's the sort of flavor that's wonderful, but rightly causes deep skepticism if encountered on a pre-ship sample.

We're brewing the last of the previous coffee from El Salvador today which means the new coffee will be hitting the shelves and the web site soon. This one is a natural Pacamara and based on discussions with my supplier apparently people find this one a challenge to roast, but really all it needs are techniques that were common among pre-third-wave roasters. As someone willing to steal roasting ideas from anybody, I didn't have a problem recognizing how to get what I wanted from this.

I likely would have responded something along the lines of, "by our mask rule you mean the city ordinance based on recommendations from the city health department informed by local data which has gotten good enough that the health department has recommended removing the ordinance and that our expert agrees is the right call? Because if you need to make an ass of yourself about this then you can keep not showing up. Nobody missed you."

Apparently vocal anti-maskers decided to over-run the shop this morning and make an ass of themselves now that we're no longer telling them they need to put the mask on. One felt the need to say that they're glad we got rid of "our" mask rule and that he (of course it's a he) hadn't been in since we started that. It's probably for the best that I wasn't here for that. (1/2)

The local health department has asked the city to get rid of the mask mandate so that's moving its way through and everybody is going to rubber stamp that. My company's COVID czar (my mother, a former nurse who has lots of directly relevant education and experience when it comes to interpreting the data coming out of the health department) agrees that it's fine to move back to mask-optional. We're still limiting seating to 18 (the space is allowed 49, but that's still crazy).

There was a car crash in front of my shop just after closing. I'm not sure how they managed to do that during normal moving traffic with no hazards.

Microsoft Windows has wasted another day.

The cat is pulling my hair.

The cat was pretending to hunt.

Today I got a new pair of Birkenstock clogs for my birthday. My birthday was in November.

The phone thinks it's extremely important that I know about a snow warning that I'll be in my house throughout and keeps blaring an alert sound. This is why phones should have removable batteries.

Last night's dream was a new murder mystery in which the killer tried to frame someone else, the detective tried to figure it out, and the entire cast of 9 (including victim) were all AI agents. I doubt I'll re-run that dream.

On the initial tasting, going out darker than this dark roast wasn't bad, but the coffee lost some of the distinctiveness.

The dark roast is on the lighter side of a dark roast and in some ways reminds me of an Earl Grey tea. Smoky aromatics, fruity aftertaste, heavy body. This is my favorite one of the set.

The medium roast doesn't have the issue of drying the mouth out, smoother, a little more intensity on the fruit notes and overall perceived sweetness. Expression of distinct flavor notes is still mild, but overall intensity of the coffee is good. This is something that I can sell.

In production test batches, the light roast I'd selected is mild and sweet, but it dries the mouth out, especially as the coffee cools. This is a bit lighter than I typically go for even a cupping roast. The main problem is that distinguishing flavor characteristics are understated enough that I don't think the roast is worth what I'd need to charge for it, so I won't be putting the light roast on the shelf. Slighly tart, a bit of melon, pleasant aroma.

Tasting production test roasts of the new coffee from El Salvador. The initial test set covered a very broad range from very light to very dark and the coffee performed decently across the whole range, so I think home roasters can pretty much do whatever they want with this and are likely to not go too far wrong. They should just do whatever generally aligns with their preferences.

Updated my #GenshinImpact character tier list for the new version.

If anyone needs me I'll be petting my cat.