Finding Your Local Roaster

     I recently moved to San Diego, CA from Portland, OR.  As I search my new city for the local coffee roasters upon whom I'll be relying for expertly-roasted coffee, it made me think of the e-mails I receive by people looking for a roaster near them.  I thought I would summarize the steps I've taken to find the local roasters here in San Diego, in the hopes that you can use the same advice where you live.  If you're having trouble finding a quality roaster near you, e-mail me and I'll help you.[ad#Google Adsense - use me]Portland, OR is a coffee city.  In fact, some believe that it's overshadowed in size by Seattle to the north and San Francisco to the south, but that it truly is the coffee mecca of the US.  Long story short, I was very spoiled in Portland, where you can throw a rock in any direction and hit a great roaster.  Now, I live in San Diego, where one prominent roaster even admits of the city's coffee scene, that "we are admittedly playing catchup with the coffee scenes of cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Minneapolis."Read: The Coffee Scene in San DiegoYELP     This is an easy one.  Yelp is the former Yellow Pages on steroids, not only a business directory, but an interactive one that allows for reviews.  There are a couple setbacks to using Yelp to find a local roaster.  First, it will show you MANY cafes, but you're looking for companies that roast their own coffee so you can talk with the artists themselves.  While it's not foolproof, look for company names that contain "roasters" or "roasting".  Second, you may have to drive to the closest quality roaster near you, whereas Yelp shows you businesses that are in your vicinity.  This last challenge brings us to the next suggestion.GOOGLEGoogle is also a business directory.  Do a search on "coffee roasters [insert your city name]".  It will show you a whole map of businesses that fit that description.  The results will likely include cafes that serve somebody else's coffee, as well as roasters, so the same advice as above in finding coffee roasters specifically.COFFEE REVIEWFor those of you on Twitter, I suggest following @coffeereview, the handle of Kenneth Davids, renowned coffee writer and the architect behind a coffee report card system.  Roasters submit their prize roasted coffee for evaluation, and when a coffee scores in the 90%'s, it gets listed on Twitter.  Now, here is where I'm giving my humble opinion only.  I have never had bad coffee from a good roaster.  Good roasters do much experimenting that I don't necessarily get subjected to, but when it's put on the shelf, I've found almost invariably that it's good product.  For this reason, when Coffee Review scores a coffee highly from a roaster that is in my area, I immediately make a point of checking it out.  Not just for the highly rated coffee, but to learn more about the roaster that made the grade.  This is how I found Cafe Virtuoso, a roaster here in San Diego who recently received a great Coffee Review.  Because of the suggestion above to look for "Roast" in the company's name, I would have otherwise missed this one.LISTEN TO THE INDUSTRYLast year, Roast Magazine named San Diego's Bird Rock Coffee Roasters the 2012 Micro Roaster of the Year.  There's not too much more I need to know, and it was one of my first stops when I arrived here.  So far, I've only had one of their coffees at home, but it's been phenomenal and I'm looking forward to returning.  Of course, their location in La Jolla also makes it attractive!Read: Profile Roast Magazine