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II - Coffee Roasting- A Brief History
It wasn’t that long ago that it was common for people to buy raw coffee beans from the stores and then
roast these at home for fresh coffee. That was particularly true in rural areas that were removed from the
small roasters found in city neighborhoods. At that time, roasting coffee was considered a normal part of
everyday life and a part of many peoples’ cultural heritage. There were many types of small hand-cranked
roasting devices available, usually heated with wood, coal, or gas. These were either used in the kitchen,
the garden, or on the balcony. People took pride in their ability to produce the type of roast that they liked
best, and considered it a sort of ceremony, or art. Each morning in these neighborhoods, the sweet smell
of roasting coffee lingered in the streets.
With the advent of instant coffee, developed for the soldiers in WWII, and the post-war boom of
the convenience-food industry, the art of coffee roasting was all but lost to the masses. The same corpo-
rate brands that produced instant soups and washing detergents erected huge coffee roasting facilities to
provide people with a ready-made product. What use to be a fine art became a factory product. Today,
most consumers buy pre-ground coffee from these factories, unaware of the culinary tradition that once
existed.
Abandoning home coffee roasting has come at a price. While green (raw) coffee will easily keep for
over a year with little care, it has been shown that roasted whole coffee beans lose a large part of their
flavor within two or three weeks after roasting. Once it has been ground, the coffee stales at an even faster
rate, and loses its fresh-roasted taste within a matter of hours. Consequently, most cans and vacuum bricks
found on the supermarkets shelves contain a product that has long since lost its precious, volatile flavors.
Even when one finds whole beans in a supermarket or specialty shop, one hardly ever knows whether these
beans are fresh-roasted, weeks old, or worse.
Finally, like all convenience products, what you gain in convenience you pay for in lower quality and
less flavor. If you think of it in terms of comparing fresh, home-baked bread to pre-sliced, store bought
loaves, you begin to get the idea. The coffee available in the stores today may be of uniform quality and
style, but it may be very different from what you like best.
For these reasons, the best way to ensure your getting truly fresh coffee, roasted to match your per-
sonal preferences, is to return to the great tradition of home coffee roasting. More and more people are
discovering this, and home coffee roasting is quickly becoming a culinary delight.
You Are On Your Way Back to the Past
We want to and thank you for your decision to purchase our Hottop Coffee Roaster. We feel that this
is the most advanced coffee roaster available for home use, and when used with care will provide you with
excellent, fresh-roasted coffee, just like most households use to enjoy, but roasted with scientific accuracy
for easily-repeatable results. You are about to find out how good freshly roasted coffee can really taste!
Please take the time to read the instructions in this manual carefully. By doing so, you and your
guests will be able to truly enjoy the excellent flavors of specialty coffee, roasted precisely as you will like
it. The Hottop Coffee Roaster makes that easier than ever before.
Please keep this manual in a convenient place, so you can reread it when necessary. If you are uncer-
tain about any procedure as detailed in this manual, or are not sure how to get the most out of your Hottop
Coffee Roaster, please ask your local dealer or feel free to contact us. We are always ready to help.