Why I Wrote The Roasting Bible — A Two-Book Series Born from Curiosity

Two books. One journey. Written for the curious beginner who wants to start, and the working roaster who wants to understand why.

I never set out to write a book about coffee roasting. I certainly never set out to write two. My background is in design — a Master's degree from Hong Kong Polytechnic University, years building digital products, a career that had nothing to do with coffee. No family in the industry. No early exposure. Just a curiosity that quietly took root and refused to let go.

That curiosity led me from an excellent cup of coffee — the kind that makes you stop and ask what makes this different? — to studying under SCA programmes, earning a Q Instructor certification from CQI, founding Tasse Coffee Education in 2019, and opening our Tokyo roastery in 2023. Along the way I filled notebooks, broke a lot of beans, and slowly stitched together what I wish someone had handed me on day one.

The Roasting Bible is the result. It's not one book trying to be everything to everyone — it's a two-book series, each with a very specific reader in mind.

Book 1

A Beginner's Guide to Coffee Roasting

Book 1 is for the curious beginner. 165 pages, written for the person who has never roasted a bean and isn't sure where to start. No science background required. No fancy equipment. Just a willingness to learn.

Most beginner roasting guides drop you straight into temperature curves and acronyms — first crack, RoR, TDS — and watch you shut down. I take a different path. We start with the coffee itself: where it grows, how processing shapes flavour, what a green coffee actually is and how to evaluate it in your hand. Only once that foundation is solid do we move into equipment, heat management, and your first roast.

By the end of Book 1 you'll have done your first roasts, kept your first roast log, learned to taste what you've made, and know what to fix next time. It's the book I wish I'd had in my first year.

Book 2

The Science of Coffee Roasting

Book 2 is for the working roaster. ~340 pages, intermediate and advanced. This is the book I wanted when I was studying for my Q certification and couldn't find training that actually connected the chemistry to what I was doing at the roaster.

The apprenticeship model is real — you stand next to someone for years and your hands learn things your brain can't quite explain. I value that deeply. But intuition alone doesn't scale. In a professional roastery, you can't rely on your nose and memory to hit the same profile every day, especially with new origins or new equipment. If you want to innovate — to push what's possible — you need frameworks.

Book 2 is that framework. Green coffee chemistry. Thermodynamics. The Maillard reaction, caramelisation, Strecker degradation, chlorogenic acid breakdown, pyrolysis. Rate of Rise. Development Time Ratio. Profile design. Sensory science. Production operations. And, in the second edition, six practitioner supplements covering everything from green coffee evaluation to espresso roasting science and a full troubleshooting guide.

Why Two Books, Not One

I tried, in early drafts, to write a single book that covered everything. It didn't work. The beginner kept getting buried under chemistry they weren't ready for, and the working roaster kept skipping past chapters they'd already mastered. The two readers needed different books — and trying to serve both in one volume served neither.

So Book 1 is genuinely a beginner's book. Slow, contextual, written like a patient mentor walking you through your first year. Book 2 is genuinely a science text — built so you can enter wherever you need, jump to thermodynamics if you're solid on green chemistry, or go straight to Part VI if you're stuck on a high-altitude Ethiopian. The two books complement each other, but neither pretends to be the other.

If you read them in order, you get the full arc. If you start with Book 2 because you're already roasting, that's fine too. The series respects where you are.

A Personal Note

My path is proof that mastery in coffee roasting is not reserved for those born into it. It does not require a particular background, a special talent, or decades of tradition. What it requires is curiosity, discipline, and the willingness to treat every roast as a lesson.

Writing The Roasting Bible was never about positioning myself as an authority. It came from a simpler place: the belief that what I've learned — often the hard way — might save someone else a few missteps along the road. I'm still very much on this journey, and these books are my attempt to walk part of it alongside you.

What's Coming in This Series

Over the next few weeks I'll publish a guided tour of both books on this blog — one post for each major part of each book. You'll get the substance: the key ideas, the figures, the practical takeaways. If you want the full book after that, the links below will always be at the bottom of every post.

Get Book 1 (Digital, 165 pages)  ·  Get Book 2 (Digital, ~340 pages)

Paperback editions also available on Amazon — search "The Roasting Bible Wing Yuen".

Wing Yuen is the founder of Tasse Coffee Roastery and Tasse Coffee Education, an SCA Authorised Trainer, CQI Q Instructor, and National Barista Championship judge based in Tokyo and Hong Kong.