I was fortunate enough to get my hands on a kilo of this Geisha coffee from La Candelilla in Costa Rica as soon as it arrived at Ministry Grounds. I've roasted this one for espresso, but didn't want to lose any of the florality, sweetness or fruit flavours the geisha is known for. Quite a challenge, when 1kg is only two roasts for me.

I decided on a three minute drying phase ramp up to 100 degrees, then increase in heat output up to 195 degrees first crack at 10:00.  First crack was actually at 196 degrees, and then the slow ramp up to just shortly after the end of first crack at 205 degrees at 13:00 was when i dumped the beans.

I'd definitely rather go too light than too dark on this one, but i'm actually really happy with how this first roast has turned out. You can see there is the slight mottling still present which only disappears well beyond first crack. The ground coffee reveals a nice light espresso colour, and smells like geisha! Clean, sweet and floral.

Some people may think this is too light for espresso but in my opinion if you want to impart more roast flavour than this there are better (and less expensive) coffees you could choose. Plenty of kenyans would take a darker roast and retain the sweetness, for example. There's just not much point buying a geisha at this stage of the game and then roasting the florals into submission. Geisha is still quite rare and the most expensive coffee varietal, so it deserves even more care and attention to detail.

I'll post an update with tasting notes both here and on Ministry Grounds as soon as it's had 5 days to de-gas. I'm also going to attempt my first ever coffee scoring here on BrewMethod, and i have a little something special planned for that.

First roast of the latest 'special reserve' coffees from Ministry Grounds has turned out pretty well. Aimed for an espresso roast as dark as i would go. That ended up being 3.5 mins past first crack. This is a honey process coffee which was originally set aside for the cup of excellence program. I've had honey process from costa rica las lajas last year and it was one of the sweetest, most unique coffees (albeit not exactly a clean cup) i had tried up until that point. Here it is green:

Roast log:

Tasting update Sep 19, 2010: Very nice, clean and sweet coffee - fine strawberry acidity, pronouced honey sweetness, plenty of body. One cup's not enough!