This is part of an ongoing series of quick interviews with coffee professionals I've run into who were kind enough to participate.

Today's victim is Nate White of West Coast Roasting.

[Me] Before we get started, what's your name, company, and title?

[Nate] Nate White, West Coast Roasting, Owner/Roaster.

1. What do you do, how long have you done it, and how did you get started?

I started drinking coffee when I went to Israel after high school to volunteer for IDF military service. I ended up in an airborne unit, and coffee was our lifeblood on cold days and nights. Initially I drank army grade coffee, until one of our bedouin trackers made a cup of Turkish coffee with cardamom and a ton of sugar, and pretty much blew my mind. I was kind of hooked after that.

After my service, I worked at a cafe in Tel Aviv, which is still one of the best cafes in a city that has a strong, vibrant cafe culture. I worked my way up to head barista, at a location that would serve 1200+ espresso-based drinks on a busy day. The owner was at one time head of the Israeli Specialty Coffee Association, and I still hold a lot of the ideas he adhered to dear. For example, employees had to study all aspects of coffee, from growing and processing, to the cup, and were tested before hire. Once a month, he closed all 5 of his locations and held a mandatory employee appreciation day; he would bring in an expert in some area of the coffee world, to further our education, and also hear gripes, address complaints, and so on. He treated every position as a real job, with strong wages, and tips were divided among everyone, so pay was very, very good. It felt like a career, not some flunky job to get by until something better came along; the fact that this was in the mid-90's was pretty incredible, and shaped my ideas of what I wanted to do with coffee.

Later, back in the US, I apprenticed with a guy named Dick Healy at The Coffee Roaster here in SoCal. Over two years, I learned as much as I could about roasting under his very capable hands, on the only left-handed Diedrich IR12 ever made! Eventually, I ended up doing the majority of the roasting for his shop, and when he sold it, I floundered for a bit, but soon sold my (dear, sweet, beloved) Santa Cruz mountain bike, and used the money to buy a BBQ roasting setup.

I roasted over 10k batches, 2lbs at a time, over 8 years. I was working 60-72hrs a week at my day job, so most of my roasting was at night, regardless of weather. It got pretty silly in the winter, trying to roast in the rain!

In 2013, I ordered a San Franciscan SF6 commercial roaster. Six lbs per batch is very small, but it's nearly triple what the BBQ could do, and of course having accurate temp readouts and control, tons of airflow, a trier (so I can see the beans as they roast), and so on have improved quality and consistency a lot. And I'm not standing out in the rain on muddy grass, woo hoo!

Even better, in December 2014 I leased my first commercial space. It's 220 square feet, but feels positively luxurious! A roof? Climate control? A table, shelves, trappings of civilization? Oh my! I've updated my website and packaging, and the next step is to start going after wholesale accounts.

2. What's your favorite bean right now and how are you brewing it?

Ahhh, don't make me pick! The second I'll mumble a coffee name under my breath while squirming uncomfortably, a completely different coffee will come along and blow my mind! There isn't a specific flavor or profile I like; I enjoy both earthy and clean coffees, sweet and savory. I will say my favorite brew method is espresso, hands-down, til the day I die; the first 3rd wave coffee to floor me, as with many people, was an Ethiopia Harrar blueberry bomb I tasted at a cupping at CoffeeFest years ago (and I still do love a great dry-process Ethiopia); and I run every coffee I get through my espresso machine and my Technivorm.

3. What do you like most about the coffee industry right now?

The passion. People pushing the envelope with bleeding-edge technique and technology, and redefining coffee overall. Only a few people are at the tip of the spear, so to speak, but those people drive innovation and excellence, which trickles down to the lowest rungs on the coffee quality ladder, if you will. It forces everyone to simply 'do better'.

4. What do you like least about the coffee industry right now?

The passion. The tip of the spear, when misused, can also hurt. There's the impression that if you're not using the latest and greatest world championship winning techniques, you're doing it wrong, or you're not a REAL enthusiast, you don't really love coffee. I think we lose some people this way; instead of making it approachable, easy, and fun, it's become daunting, complicated, and sometimes way, way too somber. I would rather sell 20 people on the idea of buying good, fresh beans, a grinder, and a decent drip machine (hey, want to grind the night before, and set the machine up for the morning? Sure, why not?), rather than sell one person on a gooseneck kettle, scale, and everything that goes with that. You can always introduce those twenty to more interesting methods, but it's really hard to bring someone back who ran screaming from the fold because you scared them off with a complicated, time-consuming process.

Oh, I have a serious problem with the current trend of uber-light, under-developed roasts. I've had coffee like this from plenty of very well-respected roasters, and some of it is just plain awful. Again, people should drink what they like, and if there's a market for it, well, more power to them. I'm certain that at some point the pendulum will swing back toward the more sensible, and tasty, middle.

5. What would you like the average end-consumer to know about what you do that you don't think they know already?

I roast every batch to order, ship by two day USPS priority, and mail within 24hrs of roasting? Look, it's hard to differentiate online, where there are a lot of quality roasters to choose from. So it comes down to 'who's roasting style do you like?'. I will say that I value sweetness and balance, I use a good amount of conduction to increase sweetness, and I'm generally in the middle of the roast range, or just before or after the end of first crack. George Howell used the term 'full-flavored roast' for all of his coffees for a while, and now just states 'drip', or 'espresso'. I like that. Don't worry about the roast level label. How does it taste?

BONUS. What's the story behind Charlie Sheen's twitter endorsement? What was the impact, if any, of his tweet?

Charlie Sheen...well, I worked for him for an extended period, and saw him daily. I had the opportunity to serve him coffee, and point him toward good brewing equipment. He's quite a coffee drinker, and he really enjoyed what I do. And it's pretty cool, because the first time I was at his house my coffee business came up. He asked a bunch of questions, then said 'if you think you can handle it, I'd be happy to tweet about it'. I didn't want to overstep my boundaries, so I said 'maybe later', and it's a good thing, because he holds a few twitter records, and has a crazy twitter following (11 million!). I was roasting 2lbs per batch on the BBQ roaster at the time, so it could have been overwhelming! He didn't forget about that conversation a couple years ago in his backyard, and now that I'm on the 6lb per batch San Franciscan, I figured I could handle it. I'm so grateful to his generosity, so many companies would kill for a tweet from him. He didn't have to do it.

There's been a huge spike in views and click throughs. Huge.

Nate is the Owner and Roaster of West Coast Roasting: http://www.westcoastroasting.com.
Get friendly with their Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/westcoastroasting;
Instagram at: http://instagram.com/westcoastroasting.