I love coffee, I recently got a nice conical burr grinder that I love, and got a new stainless French press yesterday. Looking forward to getting good at that... not sure what's next, is roasting my own beans worth it?
Yes! It takes some effort and practice to get good at it, but nothing else is as good.
In my book, the most important thing is what type of coffee you use. Where is it from? This can vary as much as different locations of grapes makes for different types of wine.
Second, is the roast level. How dark or light do you like it? This varies not only with your own taste (I tend to like medium roasts), but also with the origin of the coffee beans. Central Americans and East African coffee taste better with a medium roast, and Asian coffees do better when roasted darker. There a lot of different preferences in this.
But everyone agrees that roasted coffee is better before it gets a month old. Many might say it begins to go bad 2 weeks after roasting. It is very hard to buy roasted coffee that fresh. But if you roast your own, you can always get it.
In addition, green coffee beans are much cheaper ($6 to $7 per pound) than good quality roasted coffee (around $14 to $16 per pound). As you roast coffee, it looses 12% to 15% of its weight. So factor that into the cost.