Home Coffee Roasting: Romance and Revival

by Kenneth Davids

In this completely revised and expanded 2020 edition of his classic Home Coffee Roasting, James Beard Award nominated Kenneth Davids reveals the secrets to simple, quality home roasting.



In the past decades, home coffee roasting has gone from a small but growing trend to an increasingly mainstream audience. Still, for many in the current generation of coffee lovers, roasting remains a mysterious process.

Home Coffee Roasting provides insightful, easy-to-follow guidelines for every step in the process:

- The new home roasters: how to evaluate and use them
- A resource guide for green beans and home-roasting equipment
- Best techniques for storing green beans
- Tips on perfecting a roast
- How to create your own blend

With Davids' charming blend of commentary on coffee, the history of roasting and connoisseurship, how-to instructions, copious illustrations, and an invaluable resource guide, this revised, expanded edition of Home Coffee Roasting is the one necessary book for every true coffee lover.

Davids' clearly written instructions make home coffee roasting sound easy and should extend the process to a broad audience.--Booklist

Genres: Nonfiction, Cookbooks, Cooking, Food, Reference, History

256 pages, Paperback

Published November 20, 2003

Reviews

[Pablo Padilla]

Excellent.

Ah excellent introduction into home coffee roasting. I would recommend this book to anyone seeking to home roast their own coffee and needs some tips on how to begin. accelerate your learning curve by reading this book.

[Jennifer]

Not a bad introduction but glad I didnt buy it. The history is interesting. We simply don't think of our grandparents roasting their own beans but they did. The availability of pre-roasted beans is relatively new. sounds like the initial advertising campaigns to get people to buy roasted beans was heavy handed messaging, as in roasting your own was something that only the backward people did. In the end, it moved out of the home where it was a leisurely task done with companions (that produced a wonderful smell) to something that is now a foreign idea. I cannot believe how different home roasted beans taste, how much more flavor and interest. a wider world of tastes opens up beyond French Roast and even Moka Java.

[Nathan]

Lets be honest, It does not seem that hard to start roasting coffee.
You Google air roaster and next thing you know you have modded your families air popper to roast coffee and are starting your kitchen on fire. (By fire I mean, FIRE!)
Then you get a roaster for christmas, and off you goto roasting, the ability to have a book sitting beside you as you roast is awesome, reading it at night before bed deciding the new style you want to try, even better.
The book is well written, nicely put together, fun facts about coffee thru out it, and some awesome recipes in it to do with your beans.
Mint coffee, Vanilla coffee.
Very fun book.
Buy it.

[Noppadol Weerakitti]

If you are start falling in love with home coffee roasting and willing to dedicate your free time at home with your own coffee profile and happy drinking with just-roasted-yesterday fresh coffee bean which is impossible to get from any coffee shop near by, this is a book you really need to have it with you. Kenneth Davids is a real guru on this area.

[Andrew]

This didn't really have any new information for me that I've not already read online. There is a fair bit of history of coffee roasting - but I don't care about that! My favorite part was detailing coffee vocabulary - I find it really hard to describe tastes so focusing on that was helpful.

[Jim]

Good, but getting a little dated

[Lisa]

This book was incredibly helpful and very informative.

[Bernie4444]

If you can read you can roast

This book can take you from ground zero to roasting your coffee at home. In the process, you will learn about the history and makeup of coffee. There are chapters on equipment and techniques. You get charts for telling the different results of roasting by time and color.

Just when you think you have it all down pat there are references as to where to purchase equipment, green coffee, and further reading.

I am dabbling with each method yet if you do not dive into roasting the information alone is worth the purchase price.

[Kristel]

On my journey to understand coffee roasting this was a good one to supplement my education.

I really liked many of the charts helping understand the roasting levels and temperatures. It is an older book so a little dated (you can go on this thing all the internet ;) to find things! or maybe check the newspaper or yellowpages) but it was written in 2003, so that makes sense.

If you are new to roasting or want to understand coffee history and production better, check this one out!

[John]

This is a must read for anyone interested in home coffee roasting. This book is surprisingly specific. The author explains the history of coffee roasting, coffee varieties, and the various coffee roasting options. The author also provides many helpful resources for home coffee roasting enthusiasts. The book only needs color photos of beans at various roasting stages.

[Mark Mitten]

Very helpful, after building my own basket style coffee roaster from barnwood and corrugated tin. Great book to learn about coffee history, regional bean descriptions, processes to prepare green coffee beans, various options for home roasting, and how to understand the spectrum of light to dark roasts.

[Judson Marvel]

Need to read other books on the same topic for comparison. For example, he is an advocate for brewing coffee four hours to a day after roasting. Does the resting period after roasting depend upon the bean?

[Eleanor Hoppe]

practical without being overly technical, good intro to home roasting

[DARREN GALLOP]

A good intro guide to roasting.

[Benji]

Not exactly a page-turner, but a great overview of specialty coffee in general as well as home-roasting.

Read for work.

[Collin Huber]

A fantastic primer for coffee all around, but especially for those interested in learning more about roasting beans at home. I’m hopelessly obsessed now.

[Alan Mason]

Dated

[Andrew Landry]

Great intro to home roasting and also has some useful info on bean selection and characteristics of coffees from different origin countries, as well as local practices that have an effect on the flavor in the cup. It might even be a good read for coffee snobs who have no intention of home roasting.

[Nathan]

A good overview of the history and process of coffee roasting. Not as valuable as a how-to guide, but there are many online resources available (sweetmarias.com) for anyone interested in giving home-roasting a try.

[Matthew Smith]

Good

Good book, very in-depth- but if you already have other book on the topic of coffee, 90 percent of this book will just reiterate this bayou already know. Lots of links and references for you to go other places in the web for product and info

[Amanda]

*tips on perfecting a roast
*proper coffee cupping/ tasting
*How to create your own blend
*The history of coffee roasting

[Angela]

Never finished it. I was working too many hours!

[Chuck]

My wife and son gave me a coffee roaster for Father's Day...and this book was recommended by one of the green bean sellers (Sweet Maria's). I've been going through it and find it quite useful.

[Jeremy]

So far pretty good.

[Adam Hobbins]

Really good intro to home roasting. I checked this out from the library, but its a good enough reference I may wind up buying a copy to have on hand while roasting.

[Guy Parker]

Inspiring when I started my roasting adventure

[Elisabeth]

Thorough information but a dry read.

[Dan]

This was a great companion to pull from when roasting coffee. Still flip through it as a reference.

[Joseph]

This was a good intro to roasting coffee. Read for work.

[Ken]

An essential read for home roasters. Entertaining and informative.