beach roasting (no kiddin)

On Friday afternoon the Alterra kids (Milwaukee,WI) descended on the ZOka headquarters. They were already cranked up on Vivace espresso when we made them do the afternoon production cupping with us. Bronwen showed up and it soon became a party. Then ChrisD, who is generally excellent at thinking up party themes, suggested we head down to the beach to roast coffee. "we have firewood" said Scott Lucey. "we need beer", said someone else.
We used a little ball roaster that Chris picked up in Brazil a few years ago. You fill it with a little green and crank crank crank it over an open fire until you see some chaff and smoke flying out of the closure. (sometimes you can hear the cracks) Dump it out onto cookie sheets and transfer the coffee back and forth until it's cool.
We ground the coffee with a Zassenhaus hand crank grinder...which I only had hanging around my wet bar for decoration, but it works like a charm...and made some french presses. Bronwen made a killer dark roast Sumatra and George (the green buyer for Alterra) turned out a mighty fine Huehue medium roast.
Soon we were serving all the stoners and riff raff that were hanging around on the beach. We roasted into the night and had a ball.... then the Aterra kids spent the night in my basement.
BBF YBFBI (bestbudsforeveryoubetterf'inbelieveit!)