Archive for the ‘Coffee’ Category

My first ever live Ignite event was Ignite Portland 6; last night was my second Ignite and I was one of 19 truly interesting speakers. A huge shout out goes to all the wonderful volunteers who come together to make Ignite happen, and make it the energising experience that it is for both speakers and attendees. These volunteers are so modest, that they don’t even credit themselves on the web site.

I loved the last Ignite Portland, and I have also watched many of the Ignite presentations that have been published on the web. I love the format, it forces you to get to the heart of what you are trying to say. It’s no surprise that Portland loves the format too: it epitomises the Agile philosophy. What is your Minimum Viable Presentation?

Five minutes is not long so you cannot delve into the topic in any real detail but it is just enough time to show your topic in a new light, and perhaps promote some thought or conversation. The presentations that I like the most are the ones where people bring their unique perspective to the hobbies that they are very passionate about. Continue reading ‘My Ignite Portland Experience’ »

Lightly roasted Cuban coffee

Lightly roasted Cuban coffee

I have only just started experimenting with roasting coffee at home. Since October last year I have roasted several dozen batches of several different varieties of green beans, using 3 distinctly different methods. Successful roasting is a lot easier than you might think – using nothing but my common sense and household items I have roasted many batches and so far I have only completely ruined one batch (because I pushed the roasting just a little too far).

Each of the methods I have used (wok, popcorn maker and heat gun) have their pros and cons, they have different variables that you can control and they each express different flavours of the beans. I have timing, volume and tasting notes as well as pictures for many of the batches that I will describe in later posts. There are also other methods I have not tried, such as oven roasting, campfires or consumer roasting machines. For now I will just summarise my experiences with the different methods I have used.

Continue reading ‘Coffee Roasting Summary’ »