There’s a traditional, Cameroon proverb that addresses the common mistakes and blunders of roasting: "Better a Mistake at the Beginning than at the End."

There’s a scene at the juncture between wholesale and retail where the familiar routine of pulling espresso shots breaks off, a mostly unobserved setting where the commotion of café life dwindles and the solitary life of roasting experimentation comes into prominent view.

Here, roasters do not sport crisp aprons or name tags, but wear khakis or jeans, rolled-up sleeves, or favorite tees and caps often bearing the company logos of discarded work lives. They think in jargon terms like “tipping” and “listening for the first crack”, and for hours on end they coax flavors from exotic beans for fairly skimpy recompense. ... (Read full article)

Solubles: Where Art & Science Meet
By Timothy J. Castle,with Deborah de Cuir & Karl Seidel
(Tea & Coffee - January/February, 2005 )


The soluble coffee industry is often seen as separate and apart from the rest of the coffee business. Roasters and marketers of whole bean and ground coffee often ignore it entirely, or worse, disdain it. Yet this segment of the market is not only growing and very dynamic, but serving to introduce the coffee category, overall, to, well, BILLIONS of people. Ironic, the ... (Read full article)