The beans. Warm and seemingly glowing in the palm of your hand. Ahhh...freshly roasted you say outloud. The product of an artist. You settle down into your tall stool and ask the barista to grind the freshly roasted coffee...cupping time...the romance of it all sweeps over you.

OK. So most of the above is the image that a newby or wanna-be roaster has of the industry. The lure for the guy sitting in his office and dreaming of another life- one he can do something he loves- coffee, or more specifically crafting green beans into roasted specialty coffee.

The reality checks for someone looking at enteringg the coffee roasting business are many. From the outside it does indeed look glamourous. In truth- reality carries a big stick and bites.

For an insight into coffee roasting one should look at historical texts about coffee. In the late 1800`s and early 1900`s the big roasters of the world were based in the USA. Their factories were designed to pound out tonnes of coffee. It was hard, hot and sometimes dangerous work. Roasting machines were heated by coals and fires- making the work place unbearably hot. There were often injuries from serious burns and also from smoke inhalation. All-in-all the roasters, the men who pysically roasted the coffee, had a hard life.

Fast forward to the pioneer days of Specialty Coffee in thee USA. Suddenly big roasting machines were replaced by small drum roasters. Gs heating was the order of the day. The roaster was not ofter bulk, but quality. The subtle change was that the days of quantity over quality were over. The typical roaster(y) of today may have as little s 4 employees and even the bigger specialty roasters in the USA do good volume on 10-12 employees. Its this new breed that beckons more to join the roasting crusade.

So how does one become a roaster? Presumably the first criteria to be meet is the would-be roaster must love coffee. That being a shoe-in, what are the other very important traits a new roaster must have?

I would list, in no particu