Too Much Coffee

Phil, or Steve, what is a good roast degree for a Yirg? I couldn't help myself buying 600g when I visited Monmouth.

Is it good on its own for ristretto?

Ta
Eward

Personally I'd like it light ("City") and non-espresso.

For espresso I'd take it into second by a little, but not too much. I have some from the infamous CM in my stash, but so far I've only roasted one batch of it. I'd need to check my roasting log, but I seem to recall it was unexciting. Shouldn't have been, but maybe I got the roast wrong.

On its own? Mmmm, not an obvious choice, but how else are you going to know what it tastes like if that's your only coffee preparation method?

While on the subject of CM, I think he does his Yirg quite dark.

As a general starting point, I always look at Tom Owen's notes for the beans he carries, to see what to do with what may be a similar bean. It's usually very helpful.

I roasted the Yirg very dark. I couldn't hear second crack, but it was deep into rolling by the smell of it.

The Yirg reminded me very strongly of CM's Harrar. They are both Ethiopean, but I had not expected similar flavours. Mind you, my roaster does not make complex tasting roasts, so they are bound to be alike.

For the record, the roast took 11 minutes.

I always take ethiopians in general well into second crack. I love it in espresso but needs something else (columbian and/ or a brazil are my normal prefences) to give it a second dimension.