The Coffee Fanatic: A Deeply Structured Guide To Specialty Coffee, Roasting, And Brewing

From COE descriptors to Roast Design and Brew Design, this book offers a complete system for coffee professionals seeking clarity and precision.

From COE to Global Trade: Building a Sensory Foundation

The Coffee Fanatic opens by asking a critical question: What makes a coffee “specialty”? Anchored in the rigorous standards of the Cup of Excellence, the first section introduces a flavor wheel constructed from real-world COE descriptors—offering a practical, standardized reference for tasters and professionals. The chapter also demystifies the trading and logistics that move coffee from origin to roastery, giving context to the sensory and commercial systems that define quality.

 

Roast Design: Where Science Becomes Strategy

At the core of this book is a bold, technical, and field-tested approach to roasting. The Roast Design framework integrates thermodynamic modeling, heat transfer theory, and sensory feedback into a repeatable system for roasters. More than a how-to, this section analyzes the relationships between bean structure, roast environment, reaction timing, and color distribution. It emphasizes control and flexibility—enabling roasters to move beyond fixed profiles and toward intention-driven roasting. This is the book’s most developed and ambitious contribution: a modern synthesis of roasting chemistry and craft, grounded in real-world practice.

Brew Design: Designing Extraction, Not Just Recipes

Extraction is explored through a lens of interaction—water dose, grind distribution, agitation, temperature, cup shape, and aeration are not isolated variables but part of a brewing ecosystem. The Coffee Fanatic introduces a modular Brew Design approach that encourages readers to identify their flavor goals first, then reverse-engineer a brew strategy. With technical clarity and visual guides, this section is a roadmap for those who want to move from instinct to intention in brewing.

A Book Written for Coffee Professionals, Not Just Coffee Lovers

While many coffee books focus on story or style, The Coffee Fanatic is unapologetically structural. It is written for roasters, baristas, green buyers, and sensory professionals who want to deepen their understanding through grounded logic and methodical design. Author Ryo Mikami, a roaster and consultant based in Japan, distills his experience in COE judging, green trading, and global coaching into a book that delivers both clarity and depth.

The Coffee Fanatic is available now in both hardcover and e-book formats. Readers can order both editions via Amazon US. For international readers outside the U.S., the hardcover edition is also available through the official website.

About the Author
Ryo Mikami is the founder of Roast Design Coffee, a quality-focused micro roastery and consulting firm based in Kawasaki, Japan. He provides training and advisory services for roasters, importers, and cafes seeking to build systems around quality and precision. Prior to founding Roast Design Coffee, Mikami worked at Wataru Co., Ltd., one of Japan’s leading specialty coffee importers, where he was involved in green coffee trading, sourcing, and market development. With extensive experience in Cup of Excellence judging and competition coaching, he continues to work across the specialty coffee value chain to support professionals in achieving intentional, consistent quality.

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