[ScottWhigham]

As another home roaster, I often see people talking about how much cheaper buying green coffee beans is vs. buying roasted beans. I thought the same before I really got into home roasting.

My perspective is that, if you only consider "price" as your differentiator, yes the green coffee beans are cheaper. If you look at the Sweet Maria's site, they are selling just-roasted Rwandan coffee for $15 per pound [0]. They sell the exact same green beans for $6.35 per pound [1]. But that's deceptive because (a) Sweet Maria's has a $15 minimum purchase (so you can't buy just 1lb), and (2) the $15 roasted coffee includes shipping. I just checked and, to ship 3lbs of coffee (minimum order of green), would cost $11.30. So my "out the door" price for 3lbs of green is $30 which makes it $10 per pound. If you compare that to the $15 "out the door" price for their roasted, I'm saving $5 per pound. Sweet.

But how long will it take you to roast those beans? Two adults probably go through one pound a week. So you saved $5 by buying online, but it takes me about an hour a week to roast a pound of coffee using my Behmor. Even if it only took me 30 minutes, would I trade 30 minutes of my leisure time for $5? That's the part that people don't consider enough, I think. At this point in my life, I am enjoying trying all the different coffees and learning about the various roasts - so the Behmor stays for now. In five years though once I've learned all that I can learn and have become more "refined" in my tastes", I wonder though whether I'll still want to be spending an hour a week roasting beans...

[0] http://www.sweetmarias.com/sweetmarias/roasted-coffee.html

[1] http://www.sweetmarias.com/sweetmarias/rwanda-kivu-kanzu-1-l...