Home coffee roasting gives you the freshest cup of coffee possible at home.

For centuries, people bought green coffee beans and roasted the beans themselves for personal use. One reason was that green coffee beans stay fresh longer than roasted beans, and so time-consuming travel meant that your roasted beans would lose their flavor long before you used them. Then in the 20th century, commercial coffee roasting companies became common, transportation become speedier, and people started to buy roasted beans.

Today, people are returning to roasting beans at home to get the freshest possible coffee taste and aroma.

Of course, if you prefer the convenience, you should buy your beans roasted. Thanks to modern roasting and storage techniques...and speedy transportation....you can buy wonderful pre-roasted even ground beans. What can be more convenient than plopping a K-Cup into a single serve coffee brewer to enjoy a fresh cup of coffee?

But every so often you might enjoy a taste of really, really fresh coffee at home. To do that, you need to roast your own coffee beans at home, and then grind and brew your coffee as soon as the beans cool.

How to roast coffee at home

You can choose from various ways to roast your own green coffee beans.

Personal roasting of coffee draws upon centuries of practice, when people roasted beans many different ways, such as heating over fire coals, roasting in cast iron pans, and rotating iron drums over a fire or coal bed.

Fortunately, modern home coffee roasting is easier than that. The most basic way of roasting coffee beans is in your oven or on your stove. A hot air popcorn popper does a great job of rosting beans, too. (I bet you you're glad to know that hot air popper is good for something, because it sure makes lousy popcorn!)

Another option is to buy a home roasting machine. Most of these use hot air that roasts and agitates the coffee beans. You can choose from a variety of brands and models available. They range from the most basic, to elaborate. You should look for a roaster with some useful features, like chaff collectors and the ability to program different time settings.

With pre-set time settings, you can vary your roast on a particular bean to your liking, and experiment more. For example, you might roast a particular bean, on the medium, dark or even very dark (French roast) settings.

I suggest that you keep notes about the best roasts for your various beans. This adds a whole new dimension to coffee making, and having your own notebook about successes (and failures) will add to your lifelong coffee adventure.

Why you should roast coffee at home...

Maybe this sounds good but you're not sure whether roasting your own beans is worth the extra work. Here are some good reasons to roast your own beans.

Vary the roast  - with your own roaster, you can experiment with different roasts. With your favorite beans, you can make the roast lighter or darker and enjoy a varied kaleidoscope of different tastes and aromas.

Longer lasting - green beans can be stored for over a year. So the beans you bought last year can still give you fresh coffee flavor, when the pre-roasted beans are now flavorless.

Cost saving - green beans cost less to buy. Usually, five pounds of green coffee beans cost about the same as one pound of roasted beans. Do the math and if you're a regular coffee lover your savings will quickly pay for the cost of your  home coffee roasting machine.

Aroma - face it, one of the best parts of coffee gets left in the roasting shop. Surely you have walked into a commercial roasting shop and smelled the fantastic aroma of beans that are either roasting or just finished roasting. When you roast your own coffee beans, that fabulous scent stays in your home, to be enjoyed and savored along with the flavor of the freshest coffee brew possible.

So enjoy! We've assembled a store for various modern home coffee roasters, so you can enjoy roasting without worrying about burning your beans in the oven or on the stove.

Back to choosing the best gourmet speciality coffee beans.