This morning’s coffee is Wicked Wake Up, by North Coast Roasting Company.  It’s been one of my go-to’s for a while now, and I’m surprised I haven’t reviewed it earlier.   It’s one of the few ‘ultra-light’ roasts I’ve found, and the only one I can buy in stores.  This one is stocked at the Safeway near my home.

As an ultralight, it is pretty sweet and not very roasty.  The sweetness can border on rusty-flavor sometimes, but only it you let it sit on your tongue for a while.  If you just sip it casually, its an enjoyable and different cup of coffee.   However, it’s not one that I would mail order…it’s a good option to grab off the store shelf though.

Quick note on caffeine:  there is a commonly held notion that light roast coffee’s have higher caffeine.   I used to think this too.  However, I had heard several years ago that it wasn’t true, so I looked into it today.  It’s kind of true.

Here’s the deal:  if you take two raw beans of the same size and roast them – one light and one dark – the resultant beans will have the same caffeine, but the light roast bean will be heavier.   Mass is lost (either water or solids are burned off) during the roasting process, so the darker roasts are lighter weight.   The light roasted bean will be smaller and denser.   So – if you measure your coffee by volume, you get more actual coffee bean per unit volume with a light roast, and hence more caffeine.   But if you measure your coffee by weight, you get more coffee bean per gram with a dark roast.  So ultimately it depends on how you measure out your coffee.   Most folks I know  parse out their coffee by volume (scoops or teaspoons), so that’s probably how light roast got the rep of having higher caffeine.

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I’m writing from the hotel breakfast area in our hotel in Virginia Beach.  We’re back east for the holidays for about 10 days.  Not too many plans during this time other than visiting family and friends.   The east coast is still dreary in the wintertime, that hasn’t changed.  It’s wet, cold-but-not-cold-enough, and crowded.  If it’s going to be winter, give me a real winter.

When we get home, we are in our final move prep phase, getting ready for the movers to show up and pack our stuff the first week in Jan.

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Pretty unsettling to see Mattis leave the SECDEF position.

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I drove to LA on Monday, and it was a pretty nice drive down the California coast.  Most of the way it was foggy and rainy, and then as the 101 spit out along the coast near Gaviotta, I emerged from the clouds and I saw the sun’s rays shooting down through the clouds onto the ocean.  There was a pretty good sized swell coming in, and surfer’s were enjoying some good clean waves at some of the prominent breaks along this coastline.  I turned off my podcasts and just took in the views, it was nice.   Admittedly,  I did some pretty unsafe rubbernecking, and probably should have pulled off.   In hindsight, I wish I’d have gotten off in Oxnard and stayed along the coast via Highway 1 (the PCH) into LA.

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Picked up some books in the airport on Monday.  Just finished one and am into the other now.  As I get back into personal reading, I may start looking at doing short book reviews.