Note: This isn't an in depth look at how to roast to these different profiles. That will be under the roasting section of our courses. This is purely a look at how the different roast profiles play into the taste and flavor of coffee.
Light, Medium, Dark: What's the Difference?
Coffee Roasting has traditionally been done on a darker roasted profile. This is due to the lack of accessibility and knowledge we had of coffee beans, the farmers, and the crop itself, we were able to roast darker and hide all the inconsistencies and flaws of poorly grown coffee. You could buy green coffee for next to nothing, roast it dark, and not be able to tell the difference from A and B. This is not a knock on people who drink dark roast. It is now increasingly common for those who roast a more darker profile to care more about the process and the beans they are buying. I am just speaking from the viewpoint of historically, this is why we roasted darker.
This idea of roasting lighter coffee profiles didn't really coming along until the early 2000's when coffee became less of a marketing ploy and more on the appreciation of the bean itself. When we started to have more access to distribution channels, farmers had a more clear way of getting their product to the market and into the hands of the roasters. We learned more about the coffee bean itself and how to roast the coffee in a way that more exemplified the notes the coffee had already. Meaning, we don't bring anything out of coffee. These flavor notes you see on coffee bags, they are flavor notes that the coffee already has built inside its cell structure. Farmers take incredible care and love for growing and processing to maintain those flavor profiles of the green coffee bean. When we roast, we constantly are taking from the bean: moisture, cell structure, bean density. The goal of craft coffee roasters (typically the ones that roast on a lighter-medium profile) are to take out the least amount possible to keep those original flavor notes in the end resulting cup. Dark roasted coffee beans typically take out so much moisture and make the cell wall structure so brittle, that you end up losing a lot of the beans components. Again, this isn't to say that dark roast is bad, I truly believe it is a preference. When someone says "this coffee is roasted too dark", another person drinking that same coffee could think it is perfect. I know people who roast darker coffee and still buy high quality beans and roast very meticulously and carefully! (Note: Since the 2000's, you would typically see craft coffee shops staying in that light-medium range of roasting.) At Castle Coffee, our philosophy is that because coffee is a fruit (it comes from a cherry packed full of moisture), we want the end product to have notes that stay along those same lines. If we were to cook an orange, we wouldn't want it to taste like burnt toast. We would want it to taste like an orange! Juicy and flavorful!
Even though we in the craft coffee realm do tend to roast lighter and bring out those more fruit forward notes, there is a danger to this. With the new movement of specialty coffee, we have seen coffee roasters trying to roast too light. There are a number of roasters who produced and are still producing underdeveloped coffee that is just too light to be palatable. You want coffee to have acidity! Good acidity that is. When you bite into a strawberry, you want those juicy bright acids to hit your tongue and be a delightful experience. Roasting should produce coffee that is of the same vein. When you drink coffee, you want all the body and acidity to work in harmony. When you roast too light, you start to taste astringent acidity and grassy notes that do not belong in the coffee. Same way that roasting darker can take away the beans components, roasting too light can not develop them at all. In craft coffee, we want to be in between. Whether we are on the darker side of medium or the lighter side, we want to give that coffee bean every ounce of care that it needs to bring you (the customer!) the best cup we can produce.
This idea of roasting lighter coffee profiles didn't really coming along until the early 2000's when coffee became less of a marketing ploy and more on the appreciation of the bean itself. When we started to have more access to distribution channels, farmers had a more clear way of getting their product to the market and into the hands of the roasters. We learned more about the coffee bean itself and how to roast the coffee in a way that more exemplified the notes the coffee had already. Meaning, we don't bring anything out of coffee. These flavor notes you see on coffee bags, they are flavor notes that the coffee already has built inside its cell structure. Farmers take incredible care and love for growing and processing to maintain those flavor profiles of the green coffee bean. When we roast, we constantly are taking from the bean: moisture, cell structure, bean density. The goal of craft coffee roasters (typically the ones that roast on a lighter-medium profile) are to take out the least amount possible to keep those original flavor notes in the end resulting cup. Dark roasted coffee beans typically take out so much moisture and make the cell wall structure so brittle, that you end up losing a lot of the beans components. Again, this isn't to say that dark roast is bad, I truly believe it is a preference. When someone says "this coffee is roasted too dark", another person drinking that same coffee could think it is perfect. I know people who roast darker coffee and still buy high quality beans and roast very meticulously and carefully! (Note: Since the 2000's, you would typically see craft coffee shops staying in that light-medium range of roasting.) At Castle Coffee, our philosophy is that because coffee is a fruit (it comes from a cherry packed full of moisture), we want the end product to have notes that stay along those same lines. If we were to cook an orange, we wouldn't want it to taste like burnt toast. We would want it to taste like an orange! Juicy and flavorful!
Even though we in the craft coffee realm do tend to roast lighter and bring out those more fruit forward notes, there is a danger to this. With the new movement of specialty coffee, we have seen coffee roasters trying to roast too light. There are a number of roasters who produced and are still producing underdeveloped coffee that is just too light to be palatable. You want coffee to have acidity! Good acidity that is. When you bite into a strawberry, you want those juicy bright acids to hit your tongue and be a delightful experience. Roasting should produce coffee that is of the same vein. When you drink coffee, you want all the body and acidity to work in harmony. When you roast too light, you start to taste astringent acidity and grassy notes that do not belong in the coffee. Same way that roasting darker can take away the beans components, roasting too light can not develop them at all. In craft coffee, we want to be in between. Whether we are on the darker side of medium or the lighter side, we want to give that coffee bean every ounce of care that it needs to bring you (the customer!) the best cup we can produce.
What does this look like?
This graphic from Sweet Maria's coffee is a great example of the different roast profiles and what the beans look like in each stage. You'll see even the difference between 12 and 14 how the surface of the bean starts to become oily. This is because the coffee being roasted, no longer has any moisture in the bean. The cell wall has deteriorated and the bean can literally only produce oils from within during the roasting process. At Castle, we typically will stay between numbers 9 and 11, if our roasts directly correlated to this graphic. Level 15 and16 is what is known as a "French" Roast and actually have a high chance of causing a fire within the roaster if not handled carefully by the roaster themselves. Levels 1- 5 are the beginning stages of a coffee roast. The green bean goes into the heated roaster and over time the color and the chemical makeup of the bean changes significantly, thus changing the color. Levels 6-8 are in danger of being underdeveloped and grassy.
(Pictured: Mistobox Coffee Subscription infographic)
Final Thoughts
I truly do not think their is a "right" way to roast or drink coffee. This is in no way a place for you to "judge" others who may not drink the same coffee as you do. Nor should those people do the same to you. We just want to lay out the specifics and facts of what each level of coffee roasting looks like. We roast on a lighter profile because that is what we have chosen to do as a company. Therefore our coffee's we buy and roast will have more of a fruit forward profile than others, but that is by no means the correct way of roasting. (If you are saying "Yes it is!", then maybe you should google a coffee cupping at their origin; a lot of the times even the famers who grow the coffee's all roast them differently.) It is always a preference of taste. I challenge you to open your horizons and try other types of coffee roast profiles, and who knows, maybe you will learn that you like one more then the other yourself!