The Original Burns Roaster, 1864
He early saw the practise of domestic roasting falling into disuse, as it was becoming possible to supply the consumer with roasted coffee for only a trifle more than in the green state, with all the labor and annoyance of roasting done away with—a talking point that John Arbuckle was quick to seize upon in his first Ariosa advertising.
In almost every town of any size there were concerns engaged in the roasting business. Within a few years, Burns machines were placed in all the principal roasting centers. Pupke & Reid in New York; Flint, Evans & Co., and James H. Forbes in St. Louis; Arbuckles & Co., in Pittsburgh; the Weikel & Smith Spice Co. in Philadelphia; Theodore F. Johnson & Co., in Newark; Evans & Walker in Detroit; W. & J.G. Flint in Milwaukee; and Parker & Harrison in Cincinnati, were among his first customers.
It is said that in 1845 there were facilities in and around New York to roast as much coffee as was then consumed in Great Britain. Steam power was being extensively used, and the roasting was done here for a large part of the country. The habit was to buy roasted coffee from the coffee and spice mills by the bag or larger quantity for country consumption; and the grocers and small tea stores, for local consumption, bought from twenty-five pounds upward at a time. This method cheapened the roasting of coffee to half a cent a pound; and then good profits could be made, for everything was cheap in those days. Even at that, it would have been impossible for each tea dealer to have roasted his own coffee for several times the amount, so the practise was generally adhered to all over the country.
Jabez Burns wrote in 1874:
It is preposterous to suppose that household roasting will be continued long in any part of this country, if coffee properly prepared can be had. This is demonstrated by the remarkable advances made in Pittsburgh and other places, where only a few years ago the sales were chiefly in green coffee. Now the amount roasted in Pittsburgh alone by those who make a business of it, exceeds the entire consumption of coffee of any kind in the United States fifty years ago. It will never pay for small stores to roast if the large manufactories will do the work well, and if they will not, small dealers will add proper machinery, and will eventually become strong competing dealers. By doing the work with proper care they will not only secure a reputation with large sales for themselves, but will command the roasting for other parties.
Until the Burns roaster appeared, coffee roasters were usually cylinders that revolved upon an axis; the other devices that were tried were not successful. Jabez Burns thus describes the first roaster he ever saw at Hull, England:
It consisted of a furnace, open at the top, and a perforated cylinder with a slide door. The axis, or shaft, of the cylinder had bearings on a frame which passed outside the furnace, while the cylinder went down into the fire pit, the top of which could be covered over. In this position it could be turned by means of a crank on the end of a shaft The only means of testing was by the escape of the steam or aroma, whichever predominated, passing out through the perforations at the top; but so expert was the operator and so quick to detect the aroma, that he seldom had to return the cylinder to the fire to produce a satisfactory roast. This man roasted fifty pounds or less in a batch for a number of retail stores.