Proaster (Taehwan Automation)
Production drums, Bucheon, South Korea.
History
Taehwan Automation Industry was born in 1989 as a maker of automatic cereal roasters, and moved to coffee in 1991. Thirty years later, its distributors credit it with more than 70% of the Korean market, a distributor figure to take as an order of magnitude, but which says one sure thing: in Korea, the shop reference is neither German nor American.
The company has remained family-owned and unlisted. It has built a distribution network in the United States, the Philippines, Vietnam and Hong Kong, and supplies complete installations on the large sizes, afterburner and destoner included.
What it makes
Gas drums with indirect heating, double-wall (iron and carbon steel), from 1 to 150 kg, and an electric sample roaster.
The models
- THCR series: THCR-01: 1 kg
- THCR-03
- THCR-12
- THCR-25
- THCR-120
- with a range covering 1
- 5
- 5
- 10
- 15
- 30
- 60 and 150 kg
Release dates not verified
What you gain
Indirect heating, where the flame heats a chamber and then the drum without ever licking the bean, is the surest principle against contact scorching and smoke taste. The double wall stores energy and dampens flame surges: batches resemble one another. Compact footprint for the capacity, easy cleaning.
What you lose
The same inertia that smooths also makes the machine slow: a flame correction takes time to reach the bean, which hampers fine profiling, especially after first crack. Regularity versus responsiveness is the trade-off the architecture accepts.