On this Cup of Joe, I dive into the subject of home roasting. By and large, this experience of roasting my own coffee has been quite an interesting and enlightening one – I did not go into this being deeply interested in diving into the entire world of home roasting.
I did approach this process with two interests in mind. The first was to get closer to the art of roasting. I have been familiar – to an intellectual extent – with the science of roasting. There is a fascinating art to the application of that scientific understanding however. That comes in the form of interpreting the experience you are able to make, and then making adjustments to your roasting to align with the experience you are desire.
What it all comes down to is that home roasting is perfect if exploring coffee’s depths simply by enjoying many roasts done by other people is not enough for you. There’s a deeper level to coffee exploration. A more intimate level you can achieve, simply by roasting coffee.
In the context of ‘becoming a coffee connoisseur’ which is something I’ve been exploring deeply (take my What Type of Coffee Drinker Are You? Quiz and sign up to my ‘Become a Coffee Connoisseur series at the end), I do not think that you need to get into roasting coffee to be a connoisseur. I think that having some roasting experience expands your understanding in a good way, but I do not think it is necessary.
The way I look at it now there are two reasons to roast your own coffee. The first, and most important, being the joy of exploring coffee in this way (and the added satisfaction of brewing coffee which you roasted, much like cooking your own food). The second being that you maybe want to get into roasting coffee as a business (not something I recommend, unless you are passionately obsessed enough).
In my case, I’ve also been getting into roasting as I’ve been exploring the new Ikawa Home Roaster. I’ll be making a full in depth review video about the roaster, and talking about the experience of getting into home roasting through this product. It’s a very high quality product and a fantastic experience, especially for someone like myself who enjoys dipping my toes into the experience of roasting, but doesn’t want to spend hours making the product right. More to come on this soon…
Check out Ikawa in the meantime
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We did an episode on this very subject for Coffee Lovers Radio: