
my trusted old friend the olympia cremina
but what really got the coffee dude going was when i dissed starbucks. he went off on a passionate rant on why, as a roaster, he has such scorn for starbucks. "...they over roast their beans...all of them, everything they roast is technically a dark roast...over cooked to the point of becoming bland..." he went on to explain that skillful roasting is a delicate balance of heat and timing. and all the coffee beans from different parts of the world have their own distinctive flavors. it's the roaster's art , the roaster's responsibility to prepare the bean such that flavor takes center stage. but in the case of starbucks Howard Schultz came up with a biz model to globalize the coffee giant without having to roast carefully and without having to be dependent on any particular coffee bean source. just 'dark' roast all the coffee. roast the shit out of it all and you'll have consistently mediocre coffee. kinda like mcdonalds and beef.