BPCoff wrote:
......so I guess my question regarding courses was a bit naive and ignorant on my part due to my lack of knowledge and understanding of Coffee roasting.........
Not at all....I think its great that you have an interest, and you have to start asking somewhere ! The thing would be, to divide commercial away from hobby coffee roasting and seek out someone willing to conduct hobby roasting demonstrations. Stating the obvious, home / hobby roasting is probably an "unusual" practice and of course you wont find a course at TAFE. But maybe its something that groups like this can set up from time to time.....with dare I say it, a small charge to cover peoples time and willingness and goodwill to share their knowledge, supply of their own equipment, beans etc. That is a fun, interesting, enterntaining way to spend a Sat arvo. Anyone on the other hand that wants to learn commercial coffee roasting will have to go a different path. EDIT: Oops didnt read the next couple of posts to the next reply from KK when I formulated this reply. Well done KK. Not the same as a roasting lesson but in my own roasterie we have always made those that came in and showed interest welcome. Sometimes they have asked to be shown around the production area BEHIND the "staff only" signs and we have accommodated (depending on time and processes permitting), and sometimes we (I) have asked them if they'd like to look around. In any case we have a very large viewing window in front of the roasting plant, but its not as nice as getting a private viewing. Also we've sometimes incorporated use of our fluid air bed domestic roaster in coffee classes from time to time just for kicks (but it fills the room with smoke) ! Depends on what you as individuals are looking for, and of course full blown lessons are not the same as private viewings. Suggest you should approach roasters in your local areas and come straight out and ask them. The worst you can get is a polite (I hope) no. The other thing is the availability of suitable equipment to conduct a course with. Do you do it with a 30, 15, 10 or 5 kilo roaster. How much coffee do you actually "waste" to run a course, however the time of batch wont be any different ie, whether its a 30 kilo or a 5 kilo, your batch times will still be about the same, and they will generally be longer than what you get with your micro sized home roasters. What do the "clients" expect to see and perhaps more importantly, what do they expect to learn? Note also. We dont advertise openly that we are happy to show people around BUT the shoe is also on the other foot. We seldom see members of various forums in our roasterie and I guess they may be too timid to ask. But you never ever know, if you never ever ask. It will be area dependent, but it seems people in our area that might be interested in the hobby of coffee dont mix with eachother, and therefore dont organise things like the QLD contingent here seem to do...(great effort by the way). Interesting to note that not long ago I did advertise in various forums for people interested to learn the business incl on the ground floor of coffee roasting to please come and see us as we had an opening. Nobody replied, and it is as well to note that the level of interest we see in forums where groups of people who are interested in a particular topic will congregate, is not necessarily translated over into the real world.
