My Coffee Journey - Roasting

As I started further along my coffee journey, I eventually started roasting my own coffee beans. Heck, I even sourced my the green coffee beans myself.

I went pretty far. 😅

The main reason why I started roasting my own coffee:

Decaffeinated Coffee.

Specifically, the price - at the store, decaffeinated coffee would cost three times more than regular coffee.

THREE TIMES!

This price difference made me investigate other solutions - and I found that Deans Beans sold decaffeinated coffee for only 20% more than the caffeinated version.

What’s best - Deans Beans is fair trade, organic, and small business. So what’s not to love??

Setting up a coffee roasting station takes two forms: an air roaster or drum roaster.

The air roaster is as simple as an old home popcorn machine - where the machine pushes hot air through coffee beans until it’s done, that can be as short as 15 minutes for two cups of green beans.

I never went through the drum roasting setup because it’s considerably more expensive, takes more space than I had at the time, and takes longer. It’s the same process for industrial level roasting.

With an air roaster - I roasted about once a week for my wife and I. The coffee was fresh and tasted fantastic. The quality of beans from Deans Beans is consistent and we developed our taste. We could immediately tell difference between different origins.

Roasting is tricky too because different beans require different roast level depending on the brewing method. In general, medium roasts are good for drip coffees while dark roasts better for espressos.

By roasting coffee myself - I gained an appreciation for coffee at another level. Waking up to the best coffee possible is definitely worth the effort.