ELAINE REEVES

WINEY, blueberry, peapod, smoky, cinnamon, rose and prune are just some of the descriptors for the tastes of coffee on the official tasters wheel.

Yes, coffee talk can be just as arcane as wine speak, and the coffee geek is no more likely buy the wares of the big coffee-as-commodity brands as the wine connoisseur is to take home a nice cask.

It is harder for the coffee lover to shop at the cellar door — which is likely to be in Rwanda or El Salvador — but, by shopping carefully and reading the label they can know some of the coffee’s vital statistics, such as where it came from, what is in a blend and when it was roasted.

The cognoscenti of coffee consumers will be going to smaller, artisan coffee roasters for their supplies, someone who can tell you exactly what you are buying because they roasted and blended it themselves.

The Beansmith, aka Anthony Loberto, is about as small a coffee roaster as you will find. He is passionate on the subject and happy to share what he knows with customers — or anybody who asks really — at his stand at Hobart’s Farm Gate Market in Bathurst St on Sundays.

He doesn’t have the budget to visit coffee growers directly, but he buys his green beans from Melbourne Coffee Merchants, and their staff do travel to eight different countries to deal directly with the farmers.

“The farmers are getting consistent prices well above commodity prices for making a better quality product,” Anthony said.

“You get a coffee that tastes good and everybody in chain actually cares about what they are doing and being part of a sustainable process from start to finish.”

Have you noticed how often budgeting advice starts with telling you to give up buying cafe coffee? That’s carrying frugality a step too far for me, but do start my day with coffee made by me in a stovetop espresso, or moka pot.

Not that fancy cafe equipment guarantees a good coffee. “It’s not very hard to do a good job, but there are heaps of people who don’t,” Anthony said.

“It does not cost any more, it does not take any longer to make a good cup, you just have to know why you are doing a few things and care about things.”

Anthony says the most important tool for making coffee is the grinder. “Once you grind coffee it goes stale very rapidly — in five minutes or less. You do not want to buy pre-ground coffee if you can avoid it,” he says.

The grinder must be able to provide a grind suitable for your coffee apparatus. An electric spice grinder will not produce a consistent particle size, but could be good enough for a plunger. A burr grinder (as opposed to blades) is best. Domestic electric versions range between $120 and $600, but you could add an extra ritual to your morning and wind a burr hand-grinder bought for about $60.

And buy your beans from someone who puts the roasting date on the packet. Coffee improves for about two weeks from the time it is roasted and then should be used within a couple of weeks.

There should also be a valve on the packet. This lets out the carbon dioxide the coffee gives off but lets nothing get into the sealed bag.

Anthony was working as a mechanical engineer in 2010 when he visited Tasmania with his girlfriend Kelly, a secretary. They liked it so much, they returned two years later to have their wedding here, then spent the next five years “trying to get down here”.

His interest in making and then roasting coffee grew and he ran a