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Challenges
Being a roaster allowed Metha to understand coffee and
recognize difficult challenges most beginner roasters in Thailand
have to face, and the first challenge is the lack of professional
guidance. “The knowledge on roasting in Thailand is still hard to
find. Coffee roasters are not seriously forming a community and
that makes it hard for beginners to look for information.” Many
beginner roasters choose to learn by themselves while some
travel overseas to learn. The second challenge is how to choose
coffee roasting machines. “Thai-made coffee roasting machines
has always been in the market but I think they lack development.
I used to be curious about the differences between Thai-made
and imported machines. I wanted to know the advantage and
disadvantages between them but the answers were hard to find.
Now that I’ve experienced a Portuguese machine, I realized that
one difference is the build material. This is a challenge most
beginners have to face,” said Metha.

Thailand’s Coffee Roasting Industry
Coffee roasting industry in Thailand has grown tre-
mendously. “The future of coffee roasting here is bright, espe-
cially with the establishment of Specialty Coffee Association
of Thailand. This is a great start for the whole coffee industry.”
Successful cafés in Thailand could add coffee roasting to their
business like many cafés overseas. New development could also
encourage better environment for coffee roasters, for example,
better access to more variety of green beans, cheaper roasting
machines, and establishment of coffee roaster communities and
academies. To become a roaster, you’ll need to love roasting
first and foremost. Many people got into roasting because they
Finding the Beans Character want to reduce the cost of coffee used in their cafés, and Metha
Coffee beans from different origin have different char- discourage anyone from primarily looking at roasting from that
acter. Roasting or blending them in a specific roast profile can point of view. “I believe beginners need to learn as much as
create distinct flavours of the beans, and the result can be used they can. For that, they have to love what they do because the
to develop green beans as well. “If I want to present the character detail can be overwhelming. Evaluate yourself if you can handle
of a specific green beans, I need to have them roasted. If I cannot the task. You don’t need to be a roaster to excel in the coffee
roast, I won’t be able to find out how good our green beans are, industry. You can be a barista and do your best there.”
and I cannot improve the quality of our beans.” Besides roast-
ing for customers, Metha also gained roasting technique from
his green bean clients. “Most green beans customers are rosters
and they helped me learn quicker by sharing their knowledge.
I’m fortunate to be surrounded by green beans which I can ex-
periment with. Compared to those who have difficulties finding
green beans, I have a lot of advantages in term of green bean
availability and information.” This is the reason why Metha is
able to advance his roasting skill so quickly.
Besides the ability to roast, a good roaster should have
a scientist mindset. “You should have the spirit of a scientist Special Thanks
because the quest will never end. There will be new things to Metha Tahtip
play with. For example, roasting the same green beans in differ-
ent roast profiles will yield different result. Green beans from
different harvest also give different result even though the same
roast profile is used. And different processes will definitely give
different coffee beans. It’s important to keep learning because
the road never ends.” Another important quality of a roaster is
discipline. Roasters need to pay attention to every step from
start to finish. Everything has to be observed and recorded, and
that’s why they need the quality of a scientist.
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