Today as I write this, I’m savoring a great Kona Coffee from the Hawaiian Coffee Company, (see resources page) in one of my favorite coffee cups…..but anyway last time we discussed the different varieties of the coffee bean.   Today, let’s discuss the different types of roasts for coffee.

Roasting the coffee beans, is what is done to them to turn them into the dark brown color, and to bring out their amazing flavor.   Green coffee beans don’t resemble anything like what you and I are familiar with when it comes to what we think of as coffee.  So what type of different roasts are there?  Well according to the National Coffee Association, there are 4 different types of roast. I list these with the caveat, that roasting coffee is as much of art as it is a science, and thus many professional roasters create their own names (rightly so as roasting is not easy……but I’m certain we’ll be trying this sometime in the future) for the many different types of roasts that can be found within the 4 different types of roast.  The 4 different are:

• Light Roasts – this type of roast is usually used for the more mild types of coffee beans – think Arabica beans and what we discussed in part 2.  When you look at these bean, they will not have an oil on the surface as the temperature and length of time they were roasted doesn’t bring out the oils out of the beans.  They are light brown in color. This style of roast is also called “Half City Roast”, “Light City”, “Cinnamon” and “New England”. Light roasted beans produce a cup of coffee that has significant sour flavor and almost no body. With a light roast, more of the flavor, from the region in which the bean is from can found.

• Medium Roasts – This is what many of us would recognize as a coffee bean, in fact, it has been called “American Roast”. It has a medium brown color and stronger flavor than the light roast.   They also do not have oil on their surface. These are also known as “City”, and “Breakfast Roast”.  This type of roast creates a cup of coffee that is balanced in its aroma, acidity and flavor.

• Medium –Dark Roasts – Also known as “Full City”, these beans have some oil on the surface and have a nice dark color.  They produce a cup of coffee that has more body than the medium or light roasts and less acidity.  Here, (and into the dark roasts) more of the flavor is derived from the roasting itself, and not from where the beans were actually cultivated.

• Dark Roasts – these beans have a shiny oily surface as the oil in the bean has been pushed to the surface due to the longer roasting.  Dark roast beans produce a cup of coffee, that will probably  have slight oil on the surface, much less acidity than the light roasts and a has a stronger more bold flavor.
  

  Dark Roast
  Photo By Pay It Forward Photos

  Interestingly, dark roast bean go by many different names and in fact can be roasted to from being dark in appearance to very dark in appearance, it’s almost as if there should be a subcategory for dark roasted beans.  The more common names are: “High”, “Continental”, “New Orleans”, “European” “Espresso”, “Viennese”, “Italian” and “French”.  The beans that are dark roasted are often the Robusta variety.

In my mind, what is counter intuitive is that the lighter roast coffee’s actually have more caffeine and more acidity than dark roast coffee’s. I have always thought the more bold coffees have had more caffeine.  But when you think about it, it is logical, as the longer the beans are roasted and the higher the temperature, the more moisture is roasted out, along with the caffeine and acidity.

In the next post we’ll discuss how to best store your coffee beans! In the meantime, kick back, relax and have another great cup of coffee!

All the best,

Island Mike Java

References:

1. National Coffee Association
2. Coffee Cross Roads
3. Hula Daddy Coffee