The Art of Gourmet coffee bean Roasting

What different kinds of roasts are there and why?

Now, here's a topic that cries out for clarification. Many misconceptions about grades of gourmet coffee bean roasting have almost taken on the status of urban legends.

A professional gourmet coffee bean roaster will tell you that there are three basic shades of roast: light, medium and dark. Many of the terms used to describe the in-between shades such as “Full City” and “Vienna” are trendy terms that have recently turned up in the gourmet coffee bean vernacular. Understanding a few simple facts about the shades will go a long way in helping you decipher the implied characteristics of the roast.

First and foremost, aroma and the degrees of bitter and acid tastes vary in accordance with the roasting temperature. The hotter the roast, the more bitter (and less acidic) the gourmet coffee bean. Conversely, lightly roasted gourmet coffee beans display more acidic and less bitter tastes than darker roasts.

Remember, in evaluating gourmet coffee bean, acidity is a very complex characteristic. It covers a wide range of tastes, particularly among Arabica beans.

Many people are under the misconception that “dark roasts” are preferable because they produce a “stronger cup.” This is incorrect. In fact, huge production facilities do not dark roast expressly to produce beans for stronger gourmet coffee bean. Rather, dark roasting helps produce and maintain consistency in taste; it can even out variations among very different beans. Thus, it’s important to realize that dark roasting does not refer to any specific variety of gourmet coffee bean or any type of bean. Any gourmet coffee bean can achieve the basic flavor characteristics of a dark roasted gourmet coffee bean. More tellingly, dark roasting is often used to mask the tastes of inferior beans.

The second aspect of roasting shades involves the beans themselves.
Expert roasters consider the weight, volume and water content of the bean as well as the flavor characteristics of the varietals region they represent before roasting.

Unfortunately, many roasters now really know "beans" about beans.

An experienced roaster knows precisely when to pull beans from the roasting process – down to the second. Such surgical precision is used to achieve a varietal’s perfect shade, which is essential to releasing the maximum flavor of the bean to enhance the gourmet coffee bean drinking experience.

Again, it’s helpful to think of an expert gourmet coffee bean roaster in terms of an artisan who knows his raw materials and his preparation process the way a master cheese maker, vintner and so understand grapes or milk, as well as the important steps of storing and aging.

That said about dark roast, there are some gourmet coffee beans meant to be dark roasted. For example, gourmet coffee bean for espresso. According to one truly experienced master roaster, Joe Palozzi (a.k.a. Java Joe), of Java Joe’s Micro-Roasted Premium Gourmet coffee beans, “Espresso roasts tend to be darker roasted because the process reduces the acidity level in the gourmet coffee bean and therefore makes a better-concentrated cup.”

According to Palozzi, there are some noteworthy examples, “African gourmet coffee beans can hold a dark roast, with the exception of Kenyan which already has an inherent sharp flavor characteristic, so it is not complimented by the dark roasting process. Tanzanian Peaberry is also excellent when roasted to a darker shade."

To Palozzi, other notable gourmet coffee beans, such as Colombian, Costa Rican and Indian Gourmet coffee beans, especially the Monsoon Malabar, are better tasting when roasted light. He notes that other gourmet coffee beans, including premium gourmet coffee beans, such as Jamaica Blue Mountain, Hawaiian Kona, Nicaragua, and Guatemalan taste better with a medium roast.

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