Here I have been roasting for some years now and I consider myself pretty good at it. Then the other week I met this french man who lives nearby. We started talking about coffee since he had the most beautiful, but also somewhat broken, turkish grinder in his kitchen (I was in his home jamming with his son who plays guitar, it's another and pretty long story). So I tell him I roast and he asks me how and i tell him that normally I just do it in a frying pan.
- But you need something rounded, like a small wok, that's better. Gives you a more even roast I'd say, huh?
I mumbled something and thought "what the hell do you know?" but of course went home and tried. You see, we have these little pans that you make a local type of sri lankan pancackes in that my wife has, mostly for sentimental reasons. She recently bought a new one so I got to use the old one. Threw some beans in and... dammit! He was soooo right!!!
Of course he knew. He's french. He told me how he'd been to coffee stores where you can buy your beans raw and get the mix you want and then have them roast it for you right then and there and give it to you as you go home. So while he hadnm't done it himself he had seen it and like all french people I've ever met he takes cooking seriously so he had payed attention to what he saw.
My roasts have reached a new level of perfection!