Ladies and gentlemen - Welcome the revolution.

Imagine (from my normalized perspective of American history, the citizens of Boston having a prolonged group discussion concerning the unfair tariffs place on its citizens due to an uncaring Monarchy across the pond.....)

Most of us are on this thread because we have an affinity for good coffee. Some of us choose to purchase from roasters who provide what they claim is consistent, world-class coffees at a reasonable price.

The challenge is that the labor and distribution of coffee to our doors will result in inferior coffees to our door unless we are willing to pay very high prices for the coffee. Roasters have continuous pressures to increase profit and will invariably initiate a process of inserting lower quality beans with the good beans and sell to us. Some of them have true missions to provide both fairness for the grower and the best taste profiles to consumers - I don't know for sure but from what I've read Peets has taken this strategy. I see them as a Ben and Jerry's of Coffee - oops look what happen to Ben and Jerry's, swallowed up buy the Death Star and in groceries stores everywhere - Gone is their overt since of social responsibility - shareholders want profits first and last.

The way to break this cycle in coffee is to initiate our own roast profiles at home and sharing these recipes amongst each other. If one desires affordable, world-class coffees, I believe one must say goodbye to most of the professional roasters. I am certain this is happening now with the Fresh Roast and the Behmor 1600 Home Roasters (I have both). There are a few users on this site doing this. For example review the roasting section from about May this year where Sweet Maria's offered Ethiopia Dry-Process Gr. 1 Aricha. This coffee was according to the home roasters who frequent this forum at minimum a candidate for coffee of the year. I regret that I missed this one.

Ass you know, Espresso coffees are typically blends - Imagine taking a pound of aforementioned the Ethiopia, a half pound of Sulawesi and another ½ pound of this years Kenya AA (the grapevine is singing praises on some of the Kenyans this year). Blending is what most of the specialty roasters are doing.

You could accomplish this result over four roast using a Fresh Roast SR500. The time required to do this is less than one hour. Two days later I assure you that you will enjoy FRESH espresso that cost you ~ $12 per pound (plus your labor - four batches require about an hour). The cost of the Fresh roast is $169. Your green beans stay relatively fresh until you need them.

If you can cook an egg to your satisfaction - I guarantee you can make coffee to you liking. My main motivation was similar to many of the gripes on this thread - specifically why I'm I paying these extreme prices for good coffee when the global spot price for Arabica is ~ $1.60-1.90 per lb? The conclusion I have come to is that the market tolerates this price because most consumers of coffee want good coffee however they could care less about where good coffee comes from. This provides additional incentive for the roasters to give a small portion of the profits to some poor coffee growing cooperative in a village we've never heard of... It's a marketing ploy that adds a positive incentive for you to buy and ignore that you are paying a Ferrari Price for Nissan Volt coffee. The other reason is basically we "hard core lovers of world class coffees at a reasonable price" do not count in the equation any longer - our values and expectations are lost because there are people willing to pay more for inferior beans.

If you pursue this home roasting lifestyle, the next phase of your quest will be to identify the sellers of Greens who are providing the best current green coffees. There are a few good ones out there.

My personal quest is to find reliable sources from the best coffee regions in the world I will pay 3 to 7 times the global spot price for coffee, if the quality is there. I am hopeful that some of the money I spend will go to the farmers. On Occasion I will splurge on some greens for ~ $15/lb. Coffees beyond that price will probably require an upgrade of my roasting and brewing equipment.

I hope this note cast no ill will. I wish all who review this note the very best to their coffee experience.

Harry, just curious, are you making a difference between professional roasters and specialty roasters?

To answer your question --- No. All professional Roasters basically start out as specialty roasters. Along the process of producing these coffees they begin to get whispers of a " treasure" that can be made by providing the best coffee in the world": its along the path to ..."Sierra Madre". For those too young to have experienced this GEM of a movie - watch it - some things never change.....



The debate is not whether one is for or against roasters - I am neutral on this. I am fully supportive of roasters that offer good coffees at fair prices. In my opinion coffee is a commodity somewhere between Corn and .... Wine. As we know coffee is consumed by more than 100M people in the USA on a regular basis and hundreds of millions (perhaps billions world-wide. The fundamental change in the USA over the last decade is that many people are now chasing the potential profits associated with people searching for an improved daily grind. This is thanks to Howard Shultz and a few others. Fair price is what the current market prices shown on our shelves.

Another example I use is to compare coffee futures with that of Orange Juice (another product that has been around for thousands of years. As of this writing - orange juice is at about 1.40 / pound delivered. So today for me to enjoy a really good batch of world-class orange juice a price of ~$6 to $10 per gallon is acceptable.

I will share this profound observation that occurred about a year ago. I was in the big box grocer buying my groceries... I typically walk down to coffee aisle to check the prices and other coffee stuff, you know, just to look... That day a saw this elderly lady - it appeared to me she was debating with an emotion I cant really describe (apprehension, desire, fear,) the purchase of a small jar of Tasters Choice. She was giving A LOT of thought about this purchase. It took an effort for me not to go up and buy her all the coffee she wanted as well as all of her groceries. Again I do not know if she was in need and I had no idea of her situation but I will never forget that look she had towards that small jar of instant coffee and the profits that were being pulled from her to Nestle (one of the heads of four headed Monster that is coffee production in the world). This person and millions of others consume these coffee products. What is the likelihood that she or many like her will every experience really good coffee?


------------- I had written a paragraph here explaining in detail the cost of my roast and of my double shots, and the last specialty coffee I purchased, etc. However I'm fearful those ramblings takes us into the weeds a bit---------------------


I will say that I have quickly learned what to buy and more importantly identified those brokers with the integrity and the specific product availability and product pricing to meet my needs.

BarrneyFife2121 wrote:Ladies and gentlemen - Welcome the revolution.

Before you start loading your gunpowder, let me disabuse you of a few misconceptions (among many):

1. The roasters favored on Home-Barista use C-market commodity coffee and pay C-market prices.

Pricing for specialty coffee usually is set either at a fixed amount or at a specific premium to the floating C-market. In either case the roasters pay more, often much, much more than C-market price for the coffees they sell you.

2. Professional coffee roasters are being pushed out of business by home roasters.

The business and the hobby are quite compatible, and premium roasters continue to grow. The Roasters Guild Retreat currently in progress is the best attended and most acclaimed ever.

3. Producing a great coffee roast only requires the right beans and a cheap (or expensive) home roasting machine.

It takes time, patience and dedication to start producing roasts that meet the standards of the great professional specialty roasters. I didn't have the patience and gave my Freshroast away after I tasted good professional coffee.

4. "'Hard core lovers of world class coffees at a reasonable price' do not count in the equation any longer."

"Hard core lovers of world class coffee at a reasonable price" should meet their friends, the "hard core lovers of world class wine, meat, fish or cheese at a reasonable price." You will all have a very frustrating unicorn hunt. "World class" anything costs more. If it didn't, I would be quaffing Esmeralda Geisha and fine Barolos every day with my prime sirloin. What you should be looking for is a fair price.

Well stated Marshall.