First, there’s the roast, the firebath—the heat chaos that controls the cracks and snaps. From gaining heat energy to releasing it—and what’s born is a wild, kinetic thing, still huffing the carbon ghosts of its own becoming. You take those beans, dark or medium or barely kissed, and they breathe, do they breathe? CO2 pushes out in tiny invisible gusts like confessions after a long silence. It’s the soul escaping, slow, reluctant, sacred.
You don’t grind them yet. Not right away. You wait. Not because you’re told to—but because something in the bean is still dancing, still burning incense from its inner temple. Fresh roasted coffee isn’t dead, it’s becoming. And in that first wild day or two or three—it’s a chaos agent in your cup. Pour over brewing, and she fizzes- blooms like a fevered dream, wild and unruly. The gas fights the water, man, rebels against it. The grounds float and flail and the brew’s all body and no soul, too gassy to catch a rhythm, too young to listen. Flavor extraction is an exaction of futility.
But give it a few days, maybe a week—hell, two if it’s a dark roast elder—and the bean changes, mellowing out under stars, letting the breath out slower now, sighing instead of shouting. That bloom? Still lively but deliberate now. Dignified, like a sainted saxophone solo at 3am in New Orleans. The grounds settle in the brew bed like monks in deep chant. Water soaks in like gospel. The extraction’s even, sweet, and round. No more rebellion, just truth.
You taste the difference— you feel it. Early days it’s all sharp trumpet acid and madcap brightness, like the bean’s trying to say twelve things at once. But with age, it finds its voice. Starts saying one thing really well. The sugars unfold. The bitterness knows its place. The aroma doesn’t punch—it invites. Like a lover who knows how to linger in the doorway before goodbye.
And you—the drinker, the watcher, the pilgrim with the kettle—you’re not just brewing coffee, man. You’re witnessing the bean’s autobiography. From its frantic youth to its poised middle age, you’re part of the jazz. Part of the bloom. You learn the sweet spot not from rules but from the feel of it, the sound of the grind, the way the grounds bloom like breath in winter air.
So respect the degas. Let the beans tell their story. Let them breathe. Let them become. And when the time’s right—when they’re ready—they’ll show you a cup with soul.