Quest (Yen Lung Wu's workshop, Fongloong Enterprise)
Tabletop and countertop machines, Kaohsiung, Niaosong District, Taiwan.
History
Quest is not a company brand, it is the name carried by one man's machine. The independent manual gives the identity of the manufacturer: Yen Lung Wu, number 17, lane 56, Wenqian Road, Niaosong District, in Kaohsiung. The trade name, Fongloong Enterprise, appears only in exporter directories, with the same address and the same contact person, Molly Yen. This man is an inventor before being a roaster manufacturer. His own site files his distinctions under the title “designer's award.” He dates them in the Taiwanese way, in years of the Republic, a calendar that counts 1912 as year 1. Year 80, that is 1991, earns him a first prize at the national invention competition, social category. Year 81, that is 1992, the national prize called “Golden Brain,” and a silver medal at an inventions show in Nuremberg. In 1995 comes a national award for design excellence. What these prizes rewarded is stated nowhere, and nothing ties them to a roaster. The machines come out one by one, assembled by hand in a small workshop, and they change along the way. The 2021 manual warns that it cannot be authoritative for any specific unit, so much has the manufacturer modified its machines. A single marker is dated: the drum of the original M3 turned clockwise until the May 2013 production. The later ones turn counterclockwise. Their blades are oriented accordingly, to push the bean forward, which rules out swapping one drum for another. It is through the United States that the machine became known. Coffee Shrub, the wholesale brand of Sweet Maria's, has been its reseller since at least 2016. In June 2016, Sweet Maria's presents the M3s in its online library, and explains why it is not in the general-public catalog: too few safeguards. Buying the machine requires signing a written commitment attesting that one knows how to roast. The condition still holds in September 2026. In April 2021, an owner, Maurice Nunas, publishes a twenty-two-page manual, written with members of the Home-Barista forum. It is free to distribute as long as it stays free and unmodified. It gathers what the factory sheets contain, plus what the users established themselves.
What it makes
An electric countertop drum, quite precisely a shop roaster scaled down. The original M3 heats mainly by conduction: the bean takes its heat from contact with the hot metal wall of the drum, as in a production drum. Its drum is open at both ends, and air enters only through the gaps that separate it from the end plates. The current versions, M3s and M6, are mixed, conduction and convection. Their drum has a perforated rear plate, and two slots of about 3 mm run under the heating elements along its entire length. Most of the heated air then passes through the charge instead of bypassing it. Heat comes from two U-shaped heating elements housed between the drum and the outer casing, sometimes under the drum, sometimes diagonally. On 110 V machines they are wired in parallel, on 220 V ones in series. Control goes through a triac, an electronic switch that chops the sine wave of the mains, exactly the circuit of a light dimmer. There is no board, no chip, no embedded software. The drum turns at a fixed speed, driven by a motor and a reducer. A variable-speed 15 W turbine does three jobs. It draws air through the drum, carries off the chaff and cools the bean. A small 5 W fan, under the housing, serves only to cool the triacs.
The models
A single platform, four states. The original M3, until the May 2013 production, whose drum is thicker than that of the later ones. The M3 Mk2, which reverses the direction of the drum. The M3s, which adds the perforated rear plate. The M6 finally, whose chamber and drum are those of the M3s lengthened by 7 cm, the rest being identical. The manufacturer's site presents only the M3s in September 2026. The American reseller lists both, the M3s at 1450 dollars and the M6 at 2050 dollars. Both can be ordered in 110 V as well as 220 V. Capacities per batch: 0.15 to 0.3 kg for the M3s, 0.3 to 0.55 kg for the M6. The manufacturer's sheet gives 24 x 29.5 x 36 cm and 10.5 kg for the M3s. It recommends a roast of 10 to 15 minutes. The author of the manual measured his own machines. He finds 24 x 33 x 36 cm and 10 kg for an M3 Mk2. He finds 24 x 38 x 43 cm and 12 kg for an M6. He records 1340 W and 1615 W of heating, brought back to 120 V. The rectangular tray and the external turbine cooler are not supplied as standard with a factory M6. They are options to request.
What you gain
No software, so nothing that expires. Everything comes apart with ordinary metric wrenches: the drum comes out, the heating elements are replaced. A machine without a chip does not die from the discontinuation of a component. It runs on a household 120 V, 15 A outlet, and chains batches with no cooling cycle between two. Above all, it heats by wall contact like a production drum, whereas a fluid bed sample roaster works only with hot air. The profile obtained therefore transposes better to a shop machine. The probe ports are tapped M8 x 1.25, a common metric thread: a thermocouple screws in without machining. On 110 V, the two heating elements are wired in parallel. If one fails, the machine still heats at half power, and the batch in progress can be saved.
What you lose
Nothing regulates the temperature. The only safety is a mechanical timer, which cuts the power if it is not re-engaged. The manual says so bluntly: whoever re-engages it without looking heats the machine until the heating elements break. This is why the American reseller demands a written commitment before delivering. The setting also drifts: the resistance of the elements varies with their temperature, so the current departs from the chosen value. It has to be caught up a few minutes after each change. An electric drum responds slowly, and the correction shows late in the air, later still in the bean. The original thermometer gives only a relative value, not the bean temperature. It depends on the position of the probe and the size of the charge. On 220 V, the two heating elements are in series: if just one fails, the machine no longer heats at all. The supplied cooling tray slides into the chaff collector, and as long as it is there, air no longer circulates in the chamber. Cooling one charge while roasting another therefore requires the external cooler. Finally, there is neither fume treatment nor an exhaust connection.