Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/673312
A few years ago, when almost all the roasters were huge, a coffee roaster didn't need to be that small to seem microscopic. But that, too, was before a farmer who produced less than five bags a year could even dream of seeing his/her name in print on a roast- er's chalkboard. Today, he/she can. Now a roaster who goes through that many bags of coffee a month might be mentioned as the coffee supplier to a fancy new restaurant in a large circulation newspaper, just as a home gardener might be credited with producing the herbs for that same eatery. But then, 200 years ago, the first micro roasters were whoever was in charge of the stove, or the fire, at home. Most folks who drank coffee at home roasted it there with stovetop or fireplace contraptions. Most coffee that was purchased at retail was still green. The commercial enterprise of roast- ing, much less branding roasted coffee, was essentially unheard of, even though cof- feehouses were the main place folks drank coffee, and that coffee was roasted on prem- ises, but it didn't make that establishment special…Coffee roasting, at that time, was viewed as simply a part of the overall prepa- ration of the beverage in question. In that sense, we've retraced our steps a bit in that roasting on premises today doesn't carry the novelty it did thirty years ago. It has almost become expected that a credible coffeehouse or chain of coffeehouses will have a roaster, either in back, or at the company's own roasting plant. (The differ- ence between today and the coffeehouse era of two centuries ago is that coffee roasting is much better understood to be a craft and not simply one of many steps in a process that leads to hot liquid coffee in a cup.) Nor does the small size of a coffee enter- prise automatically signal that the coffee produced there will be better, just as a larg- er coffee operation in today's marketplace cannot automatically be assumed to have lower standards. Selina Viguera, a coffee bar manager in the Los Angeles (Calif.) area for Blue Bottle Coffee, Inc., noted, "There is a lot more we can do in terms of our coffee program and in customer service as we grow. We also learn from each store we open how to make the experience better in the next April 2016 29 COVER STORY Defining the term "micro roaster" is a more nuanced job than it used to be. T&CTJ's veteran coffee writer explores how the term has changed over the years and offers a new definition for one new type in the growing category. By Timothy J. Castle The Intentional Micro Roaster— A New Definition for a New Category