I was part of a live stream discussion with Lee Safar and Anne Cooper this week and one of the participants commented:

Scott Johnston:
How common is it for specialty roasters (I'm in the U.S. but I suppose this would apply equally all over the world) to truly be good at what they are doing? How many roasters truly know how to control the roast to consistently achieve a great final product?

I am guessing that this is actually all over the map, and that truly good roasters who can consistently get great results are actually rare, despite how many specialty roasters are out there. Is this wrong?

I have a hunch that a lot of coffee being sold (especially, direct-to-consumer?) as high quality specialty coffee (that began as a high quality green) is actually poorly roasted. How many roasters out there are roasting inconsistently and often poorly, and yet, don't get called-out on this because most of their customers (especially if they are non-professionals) don't actually know how to recognize a poor quality roast?

This makes me think that out of the entire coffee supply chain from farmer down to barista/home brewer, the one link in this chain that is the most inconsistent, as well as the most hidden in terms of non-professional aficionados being able to assess, is roasting. It's the weakest, most inconsistent link. And only experienced coffee pros who cup coffee all the time are really aware of this, and, are equipped to recognize it.

This is my reply...

Mill City Roasters:
The weakest link in the quality chain is consumers, but as Warren Buffet pointed out "your customers can be wrong a lot longer than you can be solvent." Coffee is a big tent. There is no virtue in shaming either producers or consumers that are satisfied with their coffee. On some level, companies that are held in scorn by specialty coffee aficionados (Folgers, Dunkin, S'bucks) probably create the macro economic conditions that ultimately subsidize higher quality producers worldwide. I'm not claiming they are the unsung heroes of the coffee world. I'm only acknowledging that some of the brightest lights in the specialty coffee firmament started life at Starbucks or growing or processing for companies like Starbucks. Everything in coffee is a process. You'll get about as good at roasting, cupping, and extraction as your interest and work ethic will take you. Every cup is a snapshot of where the players are at in their craft AT THAT MOMENT IN TIME. Our mission is simply to equip people to consistently do their best in the hope that both their wisdom and understanding will increase and their efforts will be increasingly fruitful.

Steve