I was expecting this to be another rather useless book of pre-written essays in barely intelligible English. It’s actually a clearly written and simple guide to roasting coffee beans, and a more detailed guide to setting up your own business to sell your coffee once you’ve roasted it.

“Coffee Roasting Made Easy” is written by Ken Lathrop, the designer of a micro-roasting machine, so there’s a definite agenda. On the other hand, its clearly written, easy to follow and very well presented. The ebook discusses the economics of starting out, the cost of freight, and storage issues for roasted and unroasted beans. It provides figures for buying in bulk and low quantities, as well as likely costs for freight. I don’t know how accurate these are, but there is certainly a lot of attention to detail here.

Many small business issues are covered, from suggestions on how to launch and where to sell your roasted coffee, to start-up capital, costs, and packaging. I learned a lot about the world of gourmet coffee from this, and it is actually a good guide. Marketing is discussed, from packaging design to facebook, websites, and even video. While upfront about the problems small producers face, the ebook also discusses organisations like the Green Bean co-op which can help small producers access bulk prices.

All the prices are in dollars and it focuses very much on the US. In the US this type of startup is often covered by cottage industry laws, but there’s an entire section on laws, zoning, and working with regulations to licence a machine. In the UK, I suspect if you tried to roast in your kitchen or garage you’d probably get smacked by health and safety, business rates and half a dozen other local laws, and the book sadly doesn’t cover these. It’s still an interesting read.

The last section are links for more resources, and an introduction to the team behind Artisan coffee makers. If you’ve ever thought about roasting coffee beans at home for personal use, or run a restaurant or other food business and have been considering your own blends, this would be a very useful guide.

I will warn you however that I finished this ebook wanting a coffee – and I’m a tea drinker!