Roasting coffee is ultimately a creative and artisan endeavor. It is a skill and trade that predates the current trend of the explosion of micro-roasters. "Back in the day" many people simply roasted their own coffee at home. You can read accounts of fathers roasting their coffee early in the morning as the smells wafted through the narrow streets of the Italian villages they called home. The only thing that has changed is the technological advancements and sophistication of our machines and the better quality of coffee that is being grown in places from Colombia to Ethiopia to Vietnam (well, maybe a little more changes than that, but you get the point).
