Does Carmel smell like Clint Eastwood? I didn't notice any particularly remarkable scent, last time I was there 😝

'kay after being a touch insufferable now I feel obliged to participate in the discussion. For storage I like to partition a batch of coffee into glass tubes in individual doses, and/or in a glass jar with minimal air, and/or partitioned, double-bagged and frozen. The OEM bag often will suffice.

I think that's a wonderfully generic bag design. You're not paying for marketing when you buy beans from "COFFEE".

I probably had some kopi luwak, twenty years ago, in a restaurant. James Hoffmann explains why I say I probably drank some. Even twenty years ago, ("someone told James that") four times as much KL was sold than was produced. Hoffmann also suggests that it would be better for you to eat and process your own green coffee in the same way that civets do. That way you aren't contributing to animal cruelty, and you can be certain that you're really drinking coffee that has actually been pooped.

My memory of the kopi luwak is, that it was unusually smooth and gentle. It was a fine cup of coffee, supremely inoffensive, perhaps a little boring. Compressing the flavour experience that is coffee into a one-dimensional line for easy comparison, the probably kopi luwak I tried was, I don't know, mid-range. Very drinkable. Beats diner coffee. Doesn't hold a candle to most well-made specialty coffee.

I concur with @Broken_Monitor's and @mipadaitu's recommendations, but I might add, don't overthink it, or wait to overthink it, anyway. I have been doing pourovers since before there was a YouTube circus about it; longer than Hoffmann has been publishing videos about it, anyway. In my early days I didn't have a scale (I did have a gooseneck kettle and a terrible, cheap grinder). I brewed everything pretty much the same, in a way that is now generally understood to be wrong by the way. It was always good coffee.

Go get some pointers from Hoffmann and Hedrick by all means, but the main thing is, score some good coffee and don't be overwhelmed.

Good points! Maybe I'm wondering, not what do East coast roasters consider a light roast, but what do East coast consumers expect. I assume Howell knows what he's about.

In California there are small roasters that sell medium roast labelled light, but they are a minority in my experience. (Chain outfits are a different realm altogether of course.) I can't judge all of New England from two roasters, much as I would like to ;) and Howell is pretty big.

Dunkin' coffee is light(ish)? The very idea is shocking to me. More than shocking; this would shake the pillars of my world. I have never once drunk Dunkin' coffee, but sink me if I don't have to try it now. I won't be expecting much, no, but the very idea that afterthought coffee from a major donut chain might be even one notch closer to righteous than char; that's so intriguing that I think I have to hunt down a shop soon.

Thanks for the reference! I also roast my own coffee. Mine usually comes out darker in colour than one might expect from the roast level, for whatever reason, but if that oily-dark-and-darker-still-inside stuff that Fogbuster made, if that is somehow light in any way… I guess I wasted a bag of coffee then. I'm feeling pretty confident though.