Coffee Roasting in Cape town - About Coffee?

Coffee Roasting - is about roasting not brewing

The first so called Artisan, but what I would call micro roaster I ever met in South Africa, was Abul Bunna in 2003. They sold coffee beans at a market. Roasted coffee in a garage and spoke with passion about the bean.

Since then anyone running a coffee shop that wants to make an extra buck buys a roaster off the back of truck or that latest liquidity auction. I think the real roasters need to stand up and be counted. A coffee roaster sells coffee. A coffee roaster that is a coffee shop with an in store roaster, to make more money.

Brewing and Roasting are not related

The trend in cape town coffee world to use a roaster as a wow factor in a coffee shop should be an obvious red herring to anyone that can add 2 and 2.

Roasting of coffee should be brew independent. Yes there are some roast styles that suit particular brewing, but a roaster should roast a coffee and then see which brew style it suits. If you roast to sell coffee then how can your roast be independent of the way you brew coffee to sell it.

Coffee roasters should only roast

If you visit a coffee roaster, ask your self are they a roaster of a coffee shop? If they are a shop, then what is their product the coffee brew or the coffee roasted.