Do It Yourself, and Be Ridiculed

I work in a really small office, only four other people, and because of the nature of what we do, two or three of us could be out at any given time. We’re all friends, and our familiarity routinely leads to us wasting time chatting about movies, current events and breakfast cereals.

There’s only one girl in the office, she’s our Administrative Professional (read: secretary) and her name is Jessica. Jessica was telling us about her new boyfriend the other day. His name is Perry. Perry is twenty-four years old, is a graduate of the Computer Science Department of Wesleyan, and currently is the manager of a bike shop here in Portland.

Also, he roasts his own coffee.

“He does what?” you probably just asked.

He roasts his own coffee. He orders raw, green coffee from suppliers in South America and Asia, and roasts these beans at home in his electric table-top roaster. He keeps recipes, additives and roast times in a notebook and apparently takes great pride in this hobby.

I imagine my response to this statement was the same as yours would have been. “Is this guy some kind of an asshole?” I asked, genuinely interested. “You know, I’ve never really liked you,” Jessica responded.



I found myself in a bit of a pickle, and I would hoping one of my seven readers could help out. I know full well that roasting your own coffee is weird, but I can’t put my finger directly on why.

I’ve made beer before, and frankly, when someone tells me they make beer, I feel an instant fraternity with that person. I also make jam, I pickle vegetables, my wife makes soap and candles, why is coffee so weird?

Here’s the conclusion I came to: When I make beer, or jam, or whatever, I usually pick or grow as many of the ingredients as I can, or in the case of beer-making, I obtain the ingredients from a nearby brew shop. Coffee beans can only be grown in a few, select regions of the world, and you can’t exactly buy green coffee beans from the 7-11. It has to be something about the amount of effort this guy has to put into it that makes this weird.

I mean, it would be weird if I made my own cheese, right? I’m sure it would be cheaper in the long run, because I really love cheese, but would it be worth the stigma of being “that cheese guy?” Would it be worth building a tiny cheese factory in my backyard. Would I milk my own cows? The fact of the matter is that cheese, like coffee, is extraordinarily popular throughout the whole world. Coffee, either the beverage or the beans, can be obtained virtually anywhere, especially here in Portland. 7-11, Plaid Pantry, Starbucks, Stumptown, and every grocery store, restaurant, and street side booth in the industrialized world serves coffee in one form or another. Not even cheese is that universally available.

Am I wrong? Is it not weird to roast your own coffee? Would it be weird to make your own cheese?

When Jesscia told us about Perry’s strange hobbies, I made a comparison that I realize now was not entirely fair. I told her roasting your own coffee was like fermenting your own mead, it’s just plain weird. I understand that was not entirely appropriate, because someone who drinks mead is weird, let alone someone who drinks so much he might see an economic benefit to fermenting his own. Roasting your own coffee, in my opinion, is like making your own tortilla chips. Sure, they probably taste better, and if you ate a shit load of tortilla chips, then it would probably be cheaper in the long run. But tortilla chips, in all different varieties of flavor, shape and thickness, can be purchased a minimal cost all over town. Regardless of the taste and economic advantages, it’s just weird. Just go buy a damned bag of chips!

So, what do you guys think?