More than a Hill of Beans!

Yesterday, I met my Uncle Jay down at Cafe Imports in Minneapolis. The picture above shows me standing on and among only a small portion of the unroasted beans that they have imported from over 20 countries. It was an impressive site to see the towering stacks of beans all waiting to be roasted.

Speaking of roasting, did you know that green coffee beans smell quite awful? It’s true. While one might think that walking into a warehouse full of coffee beans would be an aromatically exhilarating experience, it is quite the opposite. It isn’t so bad that you can’t stand it or especially foul like a turkey barn, but it is not anything at all like the familiar aroma of the roasted bean.

Another interesting aspect of coffee to consider: Coffee beans come from a plant and changes in the local weather, or any other number of factors mean that each harvest of beans will be just a bit different than the next. So there is always something of an adventure with the new beans – similar to variation that wine producers experience from one year to the next.