I enjoy variety. When I was roasting beans regularly, I would usually try different green beans that had interesting descriptions from Sweet Maria’s (beans I haven’t gotten around to roasting below).
For beans roasted by a pro, I like
Gimme! Coffee out of Ithaca, New York, quite a bit. Some of their descriptions used to be a bit too space age sounding: tastes like sandalwood and an airy cloud, etc. They’re a bit pricey, but, I used to buy their freshly roasted beans weekly. My home roasts were not as good, but, got close enough at a fraction of the cost, that I didn’t feel like I was missing that much. With one of my home roasters, I usually would just go a little bit into second crack, which would result in a City Plus roast.
I enjoy the mouth feel of French Press—the particulates usually make the coffee more satisfying; but, if the coffee has a lot of nice bright notes, using a vacuum pot will bring more of those out; for variety: two part percolator and Chemex or small pour over that looks like a little Chemex (for single servings).
For my own roasts or a new bean from a roaster, I’ll usually try the coffee black first to get a sense of the taste of the bean by itself, but, my general preference is with half and half, no sugar.
I used to roast regularly at my house in Brooklyn, but, stopped when I moved to an apartment. Now, with a house again, I’d like to get back to roasting—we’re still working on fixing it up, though, so it’s not a priority right now. We mostly drink tea these days.