Seriously? Your holy awesome coffee method is a filter holder from Ralph's?

There is so much voodoo regarding pour overs. The real benefit for a high end coffee shop isn't so much the pour over and filter, but the fact that you just ground the beans up a second before. That's where the big 'value add' is in that whole process as far as I can see. I mean....maaaaaaaaaybe I'm wrong, but I'd bet a significant amount of money that there would not be a statistically taste-able difference in a double blind test between a pour over and any other filter brewed method, as long as the coffee hasn't been sitting around for an hour. As long as you're pouring the right temperature water over the grounds....I just don't taste a difference.

I wonder if it's like music snobs - you get so into the esoterica that you lose sight of taste.

This could be. But it shouldn't be. If you're going to be a high end, artisanal roaster, your goal shouldn't be to roast something different. It should be to roast something different that the majority of people trying it will enjoy. You shouldn't need to know anything about industry trends or why Starbucks burns their beans to enjoy what is in your cup. You should be able to just drink it black and say "Damn, this is good," or for those roasters who like to push the envelope, "Damn, this is different...but really good!"

For me, Ritual beans have consistently been the most interesting, and most delicious tasting on average. But the cool thing about home roasting is I can just experiment and discover my own thing, get way better coffee for half the price, have raw beans that last over a year, and well, it's more interesting than buying them from somewhere else.