Around Town: Vote for fresh coffee beans

Now that the election is over, it’s time to focus on the important things in life, such as friends, family and the perfect cup of coffee.

Ever since our honeymoon in 1973, I’ve tried to recapture that perfect cup of coffee.

We were on the last month of land-based trek through South America. From Quito, we had traveled south, through Peru, Bolivia, and rode a train beyond the Pampas to Buenos Aires.

From there, we headed north to Rio, where we abandoned our plan to catch a cargo ship to Africa. Copacabana was stunning.

Our month consisted of coffee in the morning, the beach all day, and endless rounds of a card game called “Scopa,” taught to us by an older Italian man at the hotel.

The hotel was small, with only 10 or 12 rooms. The hotel was where I had my first perfect cup of coffee.

Each morning, the senhora brought us bread, hot milk and coffee. The coffee was perfect. She placed the grounds into what she called a “sock.” It was a white cotton filter. She slow- poured hot water over the grounds.

Ever since, I’ve tried to recapture that perfect cup of Rio de Janeiro coffee.

We survived the Melita filter years. We began to grind our own beans, albeit somewhat self-righteously. We bought a Chemex and unbleached filters, for small batch pour over good beans.

Acquisition of good beans required trips to Stumptown on Santa Fe Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, where unlike our local stores, the roast dates were only a day or two old.

That’s when we gave up popcorn, and recommissioned the $20 Poplite hot air popper into a gourmet small-batch home coffee roaster.

The Poplite had everything we needed — heat, air circulation and an opening for the chaff to spit out.

Home roasting may sound crazy, but it’s easier than raising chickens and more economic than homegrown tomatoes.

Store-bought roasted coffee is a modern invention. Back in the day, folks roasted their own coffee beans, using cast iron pans, hand-turned roasting drums and other devices. The 1815 edition of Webster’s “An Encyclopæaedia of Domestic Economy” illustrated “a very simple coffee-roaster, being merely a cylinder with a sliding door, turned over a charcoal fire made in the receptacle beneath, with a cover to shut close, and a tube to carry off the fumes of the charcoal.”

Our hot air popcorn popper uses electricity, which is a lot easier than a charcoal fire.

Equipped with our machine, the next task was to locate the beans. You’d think that Whole Foods would sell green organic green beans?

They don’t.

Gelson’s? No.

Trader Joe’s? None.

Bill Happel, who owned the now-defunct La Cañada Coffee Roasters (on the north side of Foothill Boulevard, west of Commonwealth, the perfect spot to allow the aroma of roasting beans to be experienced almost citywide) once told me that green coffee beans, kept dry, last 100 years.

So we turned to our old stalwart, Amazon, which sells everything.

Amazon sold us “Single Origin Unroasted Green Coffee Beans, Specialty Grade From Single Nicaraguan Estate, Direct Trade,” distributed by Primos Coffee Co., and “Brazil Adrano Volcano Coffee, Green Unroasted Coffee Beans,” from Heirloom Coffee LLC. We like volcanos.

Two days later, the beans arrived.

After much trial and error, which included two batches of burnt beans and one batch that was under-roasted, our method was perfected.

Here’s how it works: Run an outdoor extension cord into the garden. Place one-third cup of beans into the hot air popper. Put a bowl under the outflow, where the popcorn is supposed to come out.

The Poplite doesn’t have an on-off switch — that’s why they cost $20 — so don’t plug it in until you are ready.

Plug in the popcorn popper for 2 to 3 minutes, listen for the beans to crack, twice. Watch the beans change color. There will be smoke. Chaff will fly out into the popcorn bowl.

Suddenly, the beans will look done, but not too done.

We unplug the popcorn popper and empty the beans into a bowl to cool.

The beans are kept in an open container first 24 hours to allow the CO2 to emit. After that, place them in a sealed container.

It’s easy. This process will make the best cup of coffee of your life, now that the election is behind us.

--

ANITA SUSAN BRENNER is a longtime La Cañada Flintridge resident and an attorney with Law Offices of Torres and Brenner in Pasadena. Contact her at anitasusan.brenner@yahoo.com. Follow her on Instagram @realanitabrenner, Facebook and on Twitter @anitabrenner.