Coffee Roaster

Publisher: dlp Games

Designer: Saashi

Overview

Coffee roaster is a solo only, push your luck, token drawing game where you take the role of a coffee roaster and attempt to produce the perfect cup of coffee. The game involves drawing tokens from your bag and roasting the beans drawn (by swapping out the token for a token with a higher value). When you decide that the beans are ready, you 'brew' your final cup of coffee by drawing tokens to fill your cup, trying to obtain the exact strength of the coffee type chosen at the beginning of the game, along with the correct body, acidity and aroma.

Components

The game comes with its own brilliant insert, so all of the tokens can be neatly packed away in their own section according to their value. This makes it very easy to play the game and set up as you're not searching through a box for a particular number token. The tokens themselves are typical cardboard tokens which are good quality, however they are oval in shape and therefore not suitable for protective capsules. This is a slight downside as I have started to notice wear on the capsules already after 10 plays or so.

The game comes with 22 different types of coffee to roast. Each type has an information card, providing

a bit of background on that particular type of coffee and where it's produced in the world. This was a lovely touch and really emphasised the amount of love and effort that went into this game. It was also quite interesting to read the background of the coffee type and can help you get into your role as a coffee roaster!

There is a little scorepad where you keep track of your scores throughout the games. The main board is double sided, with a beginner and normal side, and the coffee cup sits neatly against the side of the board. The drawbag is plain, and I think is a little small; my hands aren't particularly large but I don't have too much wriggle room when drawing!

The artwork in the game is simple but charming. I love the box art (the edges are printed with art depicting a folded bag just like a sack of coffee beans!), and the addition of little coffee beans on the inside of the coffee card holders is very cute. On the board there is even a coffee mug stain which looks very realistic; the first time I took it out the box I was flabbergasted as I thought I'd received a well used copy!

Gameplay

The game can be played three times to obtain your final score, giving you a specific rank of coffee roaster. However if you are short on time, there is nothing stopping you playing a single game by itself.

You start the game by increasing the temperature of the roaster (over time, this step will add smoke tokens into the draw bag, which minus points if they end up in your final brew). The temperature will dictate the number of tokens that you draw from the bag this turn.

The tokens in the bag at the beginning of the game will be different according to the type of coffee you are brewing. The tokens may include flavour tokens (red, blue and green tokens representing body, aroma and acidity respectively), hard beans, defective beans and moisture, along with beans that have not yet been roasted (value of 0).

When you have drawn the number of tokens for the turn, any water tokens drawn evaporate. If you have drawn some flavour tokens, these may be used to activate some special abilities. Some of these abilities will allow you to manipulate the tokens in some way, such as combining beans to produce one bean of their combined value, drawing extra tokens, or discarding defective beans or smoke tokens drawn. Any coffee beans that you draw are then roasted by one level (on some rounds, this increases to two levels). All coffee beans are returned to the box, and a token of a higher value replaces it in the bag. For example, if on your round you are increasing the level by one, and you have drawn two beans of value 3, and 1 bean of value 1, you will put these back in the box and draw two beans of value 4, and a bean of value 2. If at any point you try to roast a bean of value 4, the bean burns!

Once you have finished roasting your coffee beans, all the tokens are returned to the bag. You can then choose whether you continue roasting the coffee beans, or proceed to brew your cup.

Each type of coffee has an optimum roast level, which usually is between 13-18. Your aim when brewing your final cup of coffee is to draw tokens so that their combined value will be as close as possible to this roast level. There are only 10 spaces for bean tokens in your coffee cup, therefore you will need to carefully decide whether you continue to roast your coffee with the risk of over roasting or burning your beans, or brew! Some types of coffee may also require certain flavour tokens to be in your final brew.

Thoughts

The first time I played this game, I misunderstood the rules and tried to get as high a roast level as possible. Needless to say I got a very low score! Once the goal clicks however, the game becomes a great balance of strategy where you juggle roasting your beans the perfect amount and creating the flavour. There are also other ways to score high points, such as maintaining consistency in the roast value of the beans in your cup. This game is unlike anything I've played before, and is a really enjoyable mix of luck and skill.

The game plays very quickly, therefore is great if you have a spare 15 minutes. It really shines when you play the 3 games back to back however and total up your final score to see if you have reached anywhere near the level of Master Roaster! Although this is a 'beat your own score game', I feel the game is suitably thematic to still make this very enjoyable. Throughout the three games, depending on your score at the end of each, you may be able to progress to an 'expert' grade of coffee, which will increase your chances of becoming a Master Roaster. This little mechanic is great fun and makes the top level quite difficult to obtain, without detracting from the enjoyment.

Although there are elements of luck, I feel that there is enough strategy in the game you can utilise through the use of the special abilities to offset this. I also think that the game feels different enough with each type of coffee as you may have slightly different goals, for example you may need lots of flavour tokens instead of lots of coffee beans in your final brew.

Thoughts for solo play

The game is solo only. There is nothing stopping a second player helping out, however ultimately there will be nothing for the second player to do.

Overall, I really like this game. It plays super quick and, something that I found quite surprising, it feels quite thematic! It really feels like you are standing over a machine assessing whether or not your coffee is quite ready to brew and serve. I also love the fact that you can play a single game (10-15 minutes), or play the whole set of three depending on the time you have, and I don't think this detracts from the enjoyment. If you're not a fan of luck based elements in a game, then this may not be for you, however I feel that there's enough token manipulation going on to offset the luck of drawing at the end of the game.

Pros

A great mix of luck and strategy
The different coffee types can feel quite different, so although you're doing the same thing each game, there's good replayability
The game can be played as one single game, or elongated for a complete 3 game session

Cons

The tokens are oval so cannot be protected with capsules

Overall rating:

1- Poor, didn't really enjoy it much at all
2- It was ok. I wouldn't recommend it to play
3- Average game that does not particularly stand out and/or has a few negative points
4- Pretty good game that is enjoyable
5- Highly recommended to play
6- A must play!