The hopper... nothing to do with the Chief of Police at Hawkins, Indiana
Those of you who have watched the Netflix series Stranger Things will understand the title of this blog... if you haven't then never mind!
The hopper is the part of the coffee roaster where green (unroasted) coffee beans are loaded prior to being released into the roasting chamber. It's the starting gate for the roasting cycle and, for me, it's associated with some mild (and delightful) level of drama. The lip of the hopper is 170 cm high. I'm 178 cm tall so I can't actually see over the lip even on tip toes so I'm hauling up a bucket of green beans and casting it (at least to my eyes) into the unknown.
In the bottom right of the photograph, you'll see a large lever. I push up on that lever to release the door in the bottom of the hopper. The beans cascade down the chute with a whoosh and then settle into the drum. The drum has vanes and is rotating and therefore a regular swishing sound of beans moving around in the chamber starts to occur almost immediately. It's quite a musical sound with a regular and reassuring rhythm. It's a beautiful thing and makes me think of the world's largest mechanical maraca!
It's such a great start to the sensory process which is coffee roasting! Hope you're all having a great week.
To read a primer on espresso extraction click here
To read about pre-ground versus freshly ground coffee click here