Happy Valentine’s Day. I’m not a big fan of Hallmark holidays – we don’t plan special activities or buy special candies and such. Today our plan was to play as a team together in the Viewpoint Golf and RV Resort Valentine’s Day pickleball tournament. That plan was dashed last night when I received an e-mail that the tournament had been cancelled due to inclement weather in the forecast. We heard a few raindrops on the roof of the coach at bedtime last night, but it’s dry so far this morning. The forecast and the weather radar both indicate rain on the way though.

I started our morning as usual – my morning ritual includes grinding coffee beans and making a pot of coffee. I prefer and use a burr grinder and we brew with a thermal pot so the coffee doesn’t require a heat source to stay warm. Our coffee maker brews at a high temperature – 200 to 205 degrees – and the insulated thermal pot keeps the coffee hot for a couple of hours. Keeping a pot of coffee on an external source of heat will create changes in chemistry after 40 minutes or so – the coffee often acquires a burnt, bitter taste.

We’ve been buying whole coffee beans from Costco. At the Costco we go to in San Diego, I found some of my preferred beans. I like single-source coffee beans because I know what I’m getting. Blended coffee beans can be excellent, but you have to know the blend beforehand to know if it is something you really like. My preference is dark roasted coffee of African origin like coffee from Ethiopia, Kenya or Rwanda. I also favor Indonesian coffee from Sumatra, Sulawesi or Java. By the way, when I was a kid, Sulawesi was called Celebes. Coffee flavor like wine or tobacco is greatly influenced by terroir.

The Costco here in Mesa, Arizona doesn’t have any of the single-source varieties I like so I had to find an alternative. I saw whole bean coffee at Winco Foods and decided to try a pound of their Sumatra coffee beans.

Coffee from Sumatra is unique. Indonesia is the fourth largest coffee producer on the planet with most of their high-quality arabica beans grown for export. Most of the production comes from small farms – average size is only two to three acres – instead of the large plantations found in Central America. Sumatra coffee flavor is further influenced by the processing technique.

What we call coffee beans are actually the seeds found in the coffee fruit or cherries. In most places, once the cherries are picked, they’re stripped of the fruit and laid out to dry in the sun to reach a moisture content of 11% or so. In Sumatra this isn’t possible because it rains daily. There they take the the skin off the cherries, but leave the mucilage on the seed. They’ll lay the fruits out on a covered patio or cover them with a tarp if it’s raining. Later they wash the mucilage and ship the beans through cooperatives with other farmers in the area at a moisture content of around 50%.

The broker or exporter completes the drying process by running the beans through a machine that strips the remaining tissues from the seed called parchment and creating friction to dry what is now called a coffee bean. This lengthy period of high moisture and unique fermentation creates a coffee unlike any other. I’m told Sumatra coffee is a “love it or hate it” affair. Donna and I love it. It has a sweet, earthy flavor and is very full-bodied with low acidity. This morning, I brewed the Sumatra that I bought at Winco and we both agree it’s a winner.

It’s still dry outside as I type this at 10am, but the radar shows rain is coming from the west-southwest. The forecast calls for rain overnight before we have dry days again, but the temperature will be below normal with the highs in the 60s tomorrow and Saturday but we might not even reach 60 degrees next week.