Coffee Makers, Roasters, and Mills

Harvested coffee beans are roasted to bring out the flavor. The first American coffee roaster patent was granted in 1833 and the next in 1840, followed by about seventy-five more during the next thirty years, all of sheet metal or cast iron. Roasters were of two basic types: revolving drums with a side crank or stirring pans with a lid crank. All had stirring wings or fingers to agitate the berries constantly. Most roasters were used atop ranges, but one from 1866 was a cast-iron, round-bottom “kettle” with three peg legs and a crank in the lid, set over coals or hearth embers. A few were portable and came mounted on their own little stoves.