Two of the best smells in the world...
 

Holy crap did you medium roast an elephant and then make seat covers out of it's skin?

Don't be silly.

I made seat covers out of it's skin AND THEN roasted it. We don't want to dry them out...

Well you did a good job on both the seats and the roasting since I see it is "juicy" and I have no doubt that roasting it would be "complex".

Yes, leather and coffee, nice!

I'd like to nominate fresh baked bread.

nice looking seats btw, love the color (I peeked in your build thread)

Starbucks coffee is horrendous. Even their "light" roasts are dark/burnt as hell. Seat looks nice though.

Yeah, but is it Fair Trade leather?

Oh absolutely.

I traded fair and square.

Those little Kenyan children seemed to think that five dollars was a good trade for those Elephant hides. Hehe. Suckers!

I'm not a coffee person, but I love the smell of nice leather. :)

Ah, but I do stove-top espresso!

And then I microwave milk like a child and make QCL.

(Quasi Cafe Latte) :-D

lol I'm serious though. I got a Starbucks gift card from my job for Christmas last year, and I ordered that same Kenyan bag you have there and an Ethiopian one that was marked as either Light or Medium and both of them were burnt and bitter as hell... super dark and oily beans (they should be dry and light-colored if a light or medium roast)... literally not even close to comparable to good coffee from the local Buddy Brew shop here in Tampa or several mid-priced (def not the most expensive) places I've ordered from online (Portland Roasting, Equator Coffee, etc.). I only tried them because they were free via the gift card. Starbucks really is 100% about marketing and nothing else.

Seriously, stove-top espresso is just so much better with real un-burnt coffee beans. To be fair, they've been not burning everything lately, but... no. They roast darker than Vienna (well, the bean mix means some are stopped short, some are charcoal.) Makes for "strong" coffee, but really just destroys any subtlety and lets them use cheaper source.

Zapping milk is fine, not quite the same but you don't get the mouthfeel from Starbucks anyway...

Of course, I roast my own in small batches. Hand grind for espresso (not quite what you might imagine, it's got an 83mm burr and is a straight-through single dose grinder.) We'll gloss over the fine piece of Italian engineering that turns it into such a delicious beverage - I've paid less for cars... Built like a tank, but needs a little TLC now and again to keep it working perfectly, or it gets cantankerous and fails. The things a good job and no children let you buy. Oh, and driving the same car 14 years. Plus, I'm a coffee snob. Where were we?

Ahh yes. Smells. Cinnamon and orange are up there on that aroma list for me, definitely edging out leather and coffee. All good though.

Coffee is srs business. I'm all about that Yirgacheffe pour over, baby!!!

But yeah, fuck dark roasts. Non-coffee people think all coffee is supposed to be super bitter and dark and that the dark stuff is stronger because that's all they've ever had, when the truth is the darker roasts have less caffeine due to the higher temps and longer roasting times. FOOLS!! :P

I drink it black, btw. Keep that milk away from me. :P

I do pourover many weekends, and yeah, always black. My goal is to pull out the sugars in a roast properly so my wife doesn't feel the need for sugar (she'll always add a little cream...) I'm not patient enough to mess with the roast temp/times so that I'm there yet...

Espresso plain in the evenings if I'll be up enough, but not with breakfast. It does a number on my stomach in the morning. And it really does taste best within ~15 seconds, before the crema settles out. Totally different drink that way. But if we're having a chocolate finish (and my wife loves chocolate desserts) I usually pair with a nice red wine instead.

Weirdest shot (of espresso) I've ever pulled tasted like I was drinking fresh lemonade. That was a 4 day old Intelligentsia Black Cat roast, back before I had the equipment for roasting.