Drinking through 10k+ a pound beans with no equipment
So 16 years ago I started drinking coffee after trying a Clover and decided to roast immediately. So right off the get go I bought a gene roaster and then bought basically every last bean of the 2008 Hacienda Esmeralda lot number 2 from Sweet Marias. I think their cost was $125 a pound but they sold it for $45 a pound green during peak financial crisis and so I bought it all (plus el injerto!), like 20 pounds for my first foray. I followed the most generic of roast profiles sometimes used an old school pourover with chemex, no scale, a crappy grinder, no knowledge of ratios, and refrigerator water. Sometimes I put them in our superautomatic machine to mix with milk and syrup even. And it was really good despite how much I butchered every single aspect.
That lot of Esmeralda is one of the most historically significant lots of all time. The best ever at the time in fact! Perhaps equivalent or better to the now $14,000 per pound tip-top end of the current auction market. So you can basically say I botched about 200k worth of beans (if in today's heated environment) but still really enjoyed them and had fun.
Now I'm chasing beans at less than 1% of the cost and have every gadget known to man and the best pours I can create still don't eclipse what I remember tasting. I took a pretty long break in roasting, pouring and now am back with a vigor and now those super ultra amazing beans that might come out from George Howell, Julith, etc... are way too expensive.
These were pleasant memories and I wish I knew just a little bit more. But hey this was pre YouTube even.
Correction: I bought their old school glass vacuum cup and did brew better sometimes. I remember that wick for heating took like an hour.