Ikawa Wants You to Roast Your Own Coffee at Home

Kristin Appenbrink
Kristin Appenbrink
Kristin is the co-founder of Part Time Vegan and Silent Book Club. As a former editor at Real Simple, she is compulsively organized and loves solving people's problems. She has a weakness for desserts, especially ice cream.
updated May 30, 2019
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(Image credit: Ikawa Coffee)

How serious are you about your coffee? Serious enough to consider roasting your own coffee beans? In the past, doing so at home was a complicated process that required a lot of attention to detail, but a new project on Kickstarter — Ikwawa Coffee — is aiming to make home roasting a more accessible process for coffee lovers everywhere.

Our favorite part? Just how quickly the beans roast — you can go from green coffee beans to fully roasted in just a few minutes.

(Image credit: Ikawa Coffee)

The Ikawa Kickstarter Pitch:

So why exactly would you want to roast your own coffee? If you are really into coffee you probably have enough steps in your morning brew routine. But then again, you’re probably the exact person that this home roaster was designed for.

We all know that the fresher roasted coffee is, the better. That’s why buying coffee in bulk isn’t a great idea unless you’re really a caffeine fiend. But green, or unroasted, coffee beans stay fresh much longer than roasted ones. By roasting just small amount of beans you need for your morning French press, you’ll guarantee the freshest cup possible.

(Image credit: Ikawa Coffee)

The Ikawa roaster looks incredibly easy to use. Simply measure your beans, pour them into the top cap, set your roast recipe on the companion app (more on that below), and then wait. Because you’re doing such a small batch, the roasting only takes three to 10 minutes, depending on how darkly roasted you like your coffee. If you heat your water on the stove, you’ll still likely have time to squeeze this roasting process into your morning no problem. And as coffee geeks, we’re on board with anything that gives us a better cup of coffee.

(Image credit: Ikawa Coffee)

One of the things we really like about the roaster is that it works with an app on your smartphone. (Both iOS and Android will be available at launch.) This means that if you buy your green coffee beans from Ikawa Coffee, you’ll be able to simply select the preselected roasting settings. You’ll also be able to adjust the roasting time and temperature as you learn your preferences over time. Hopefully you’ll be able to save your personalized settings as well.

So now we get to the not-so-exciting news: the price. As you might have been expecting, the Ikawa Home Roaster is expensive. To get the roaster as a reward for donating to the Kickstarter, you’ll have to shell out at least $767, and that doesn’t include the green coffee beans. Higher levels of donation will get you a reward that includes green beans as well, and you’ll be able to order them from Ikawa after the project ends as well. Luckily, they aren’t the only company that sells green coffee beans — there are plenty of companies you can order them from online — but you still won’t be able to just run down to the grocery store and pick some up.

Watch the Kickstarter video below and see if the Ikawa Home Coffee Roaster is right for you:

What Will It Take to Make the Ikawa Home Coffee Roaster a Reality?

Would you consider funding the Ikawa Home Coffee Roaster? Tell us why or why not in the comments.