yakster wrote:Who's going to start the thread owning up to how often you get a poorly roasted batch when roasting your own coffee? I think I may exceed my 10% guesstimate for commercially roasted with my own roasts, but since I'm pretty selective on where I get my commercially roasted coffee from I'm fine with that.

This was a good thought provoker for my 8k run out in the ridiculous cold last night.

A few things came to mind and yes this is entirely overthinking.

1. The cost of buying greens is a fraction (for me probably 30%) of roasted specialty coffee. High costs means conservative brewing. I hate getting to the bottom of the bag and finally having the perfect taste.

2. Buying a bag of roasted coffee pays the expenses of someone else pursuing their own priorities. I have to adjust my grinding, brewing, and tastes to their profiles. Their greens choices and profiles are affected by their expenses and need to turn a profit-- they can't compete with me.

3. Roasting my own is an investment in myself and equipment - my knowledge & skills improve with every roast in connection with the brewing and tasting. My grinding and brewing adjust to my roasts, so my priorities run the entire show. I've never had an undrinkable roast or something I would say "yuck" to. Instead I get more data to use to adjust my roasting profile.

3A. And what I learn from coffee roasting is transferable-- I end up using that knowledge and experience to inform other things I do in other fields. In this sense, doing it myself invests in my education (in contrast to the North American habit of saying not to waste time doing things not directly related to wages)

4. The major pull of roasters is convenience. But lack of consistency means the convenience factor is damaged, and the need to tune to their profiles means it's a pain to try new stuff from different roasters. In order to be highly consistent and really good tasting and meet expenses and turn a profit and grow their business... they would have to charge a much higher price which may put them outside of a regular convenience item.

5. Similar to restaurants (and this gets to your point) - I can buy better ingredients and cook better than probably 90% of them. But I choose from time to time to enjoy a "destination meal" at a really high cost that relates to something far outside my experience and skill. I wouldn't trust myself to roast a gesha, but I might try a small bag of a highly recommended roaster at high cost to ensure it's not messed up.

CSME9 wrote:Has happened to me once in a blue moon, I call the vendor and they always send a replacement.

Same experience, luckily the people I order from never hesitate to offer a free replacement.

I think customer service goes a long way in this industry thats heavily saturated. If you lose on customer service, I think you forever lose the customer.