On three separate occasions now I've taken classes instructed by Rob and I highly recommend him as an instructor. I've been in many classes with many different instructors and Rob's style of presentation, his level (and type) of experience, and his obvious desire to help others sets him apart from many of the well-known instructors providing similar classes.

One of the classes I took from him was a Masterclass in which he discussed his roasting philosophy and how he reached the conclusions he shared in his book. In the class you could tell he was not withholding any roasting secret sauce, nor was he using the class to up-sell his consultancy practice (which I have experienced from other well-known instructors). He seems to genuinely want to improve the craft and his posts here are a clear indication of that. There were a few things I was particularly impressed with:

1. He's attempting to explicitly change the roasting paradigm from one of simply "art" to one of "scientific art" in which the process is measured and controlled while still producing something beautiful and appealing.
2. He pulls in information from other domains and applies it to roasting. i.e. he talks often about content from the book Neurogastronomy.
3. He demonstrates several of his concepts via practical means in the class and experiencing the practical after hearing the theoretical is always beneficial. For example, we blindly cupped different flights of the same coffee in which only one phase of the roast was changed between flights and we discussed what was different about the coffees and he explained why they tasted different. He also produced a coffee that was confusing because it had both carbony/ashy notes as well as a bright, remarkable acidity. It was confusing enough to me that as I was taking notes I kept scratching out notes thinking I had written them next to the wrong coffee.

Now before you think this is just a long sack-wash and that I'm simply a fanboy, let me say that I don't buy in to the celebrity of the industry. Rob's concepts and philosophies will help advance the craft for everyone and for that reason, I feel compelled to help pimp his book and his classes. You will definitely benefit.