Making a cup of ideal coffee is impossible without roasting coffee beans first. The process of roasting has a major influence on the drink’s taste and aroma. Roasted beans lose moisture, change color, and become larger. Traditionally, there are three degrees of roasting coffee – light, medium, and dark. So, why do some people prefer dark roasted coffee to light one?
Types Of Roasted coffee profiles
Coffee lovers can distinguish the minor changes of roasting type, feeling even compliance with the temperature regime. There are numerous styles and profiles of coffee roasting in the world. Conditionally, they can be divided into 3 groups:
- Light roast coffee with maximum acidity and bright taste is ideal for waking up in the morning. At breakfast, this coffee can be combined with milk. Its taste has a pronounced sweetness.
- Medium roasted coffee has a distinct taste, a sweet caramel aftertaste, and less noticeable sourness.
- Dark roasting gives coffee a bright bitterness and gets rid of acidity. The taste of this drink is pleasantly invigorating and gives expressive sensations.
Each of these groups has several styles with a more specific bouquet.
Styles Of Dark Roasted Coffee
Dark roasting gives the coffee a dark brown, almost black color. Grains lose up to 20% of their weight due to loss of oil and water. Coffee is highly caramelized, very strong, and rich. Many Brazilian coffee varieties are often deeply roasted.
- The most popular styles of dark roasted coffee is Turkish, Italian and French roasting: The grains are heated to 240 ° C until two clacks. The smell of frying is burnt and bitter. The drink is strong, bitter, but at the same time, has a pronounced natural sweetness.
- The less known styles of dark roasting: It is called Cuban, Mexican, or Spanish. The beans roasted in this method are fragile, almost black. Almost all the moisture has evaporated from the coffee. The drink is very bitter. You can add spices to the drink for the sharpness of taste.
Coffee lovers often choose these roasting profiles because they reveal the most unexpected shades of taste and aroma of coffee plus the round and creamy mouthfeel.
From History Of Dark Roasting
You can take a classification of coffee roasting from blogs and special literature. The dark roasted coffee is popularly known as “Italian roast.” In fact, it is quite difficult to find a producer in Italy who roasts coffee to such a grade nowadays. In the northern regions of Italy, it is almost impossible, but it is quite real in the south.
So, why is the dark roast called Italian? A long time ago, in Naples – the spiritual capital of espresso and large Italian port city, the first coffee roasting companies appeared. All specific goods including coffee were sold through Naples. Local traders sorted coffee in their own way: defective grain was left for domestic consumption, and green coffee of good quality was later sold for a good price. And what to do with defective grain?
- Dark roasting allows hiding the negative aspects of the taste, but the drink becomes too tart and has almost no additional notes. In the past, Neapolitan roasters roasted coffee very darkly to hide its poor quality.
- Nowadays, in Naples, some local coffee roasters continue to roast coffee very darkly, as their grandfathers did. And some of them do not even suspect why in the south of Italy it became a habit to roast coffee darker than in the north.
Roasting And The Taste Of Beverage
The roasting factor can support the taste characteristics of coffee that everyone likes and appreciates. Deciding how to roast coffee or what beans to buy in the store should be based on your individual preferences:
- Acidic Drink: In case you like pronounced acidity, roast your coffee light. It will almost certainly help you get those floral and fruity flavours.
- Bitter Notes: Do you like bitterness with burning notes, brew a cup of dark roasted coffee.
- Delicate taste can be taken from light and medium roasts.
- Enjoy the balanced taste with bitter-sweet notes of your coffee when drinking medium roasted varieties. Appreciating intense burns and piquant spicy taste, choose grains of dark and very dark roasting.
Which Degree Of Roasting To Choose?
It is wrong to say that one roast is better than another because everyone has different tastes and preferences. It will be more correct to define how roasting profiles influence the taste of your drink to choose the most preferable variant.
Taste
There is a simple dependence. The darker the roast, the lower the acidity and the higher the bitterness, and vice versa. The sweetness of coffee is better felt in the medium roast when the sugars are caramelized but have not yet burned. You can say that medium roast helps to reach a more balanced taste, more sweetness compared to light roast but not as strong as dark roasted coffee.
Aroma
Does the coffee aroma depend on the roasting grade? Yes, it does in a specific manner. The maximum richness of aromas is shown in light roasting – it is of herbal, fruit, berry, and flower tones. As the degree of roasting increases, the aroma acquires nut and chocolate tones, caramel, spices, cocoa, and toasted bread aroma. Finally, it turns into a smoky, resinous spectrum of dark roasting.
Effect Of The Finished Drink
There are many myths about dark roasted coffees. One of the most popular of them is dark roasted coffee which has the strongest boosting effect. This myth appeared because of the bright bitterness of the finished drink. But actually the amount of caffeine in your coffee is more defined by the way you brew your cup.
What People Like And Don’t like In Light & Dark Roast
The type of roast determines the final pallet of tastes and aromas in coffee – it’s an undeniable fact. To make a perfect cup and to find all advantages of coffee varieties, fully experience the taste of the variety and reveal all its advantages, be sure to pay attention to the roasting grade.
Dark Roasted Coffee
This roast is also usually referred to as “for espresso.” Dark roasted coffee is intended for a geyser coffee maker, coffee machine, or jezve.
Dark roasted coffee has less acidity. It is also less dense, with a high degree of caramelization. Therefore, brewing it, you will get a classic taste. It will be a rich coffee with a dense body and a bitter-chocolate aftertaste. You may also feel vague descriptors: dried fruits, berries, spices, or other flavors specified in the description of a particular variety.
Light Roast Coffee
This roast is also called “for filter brewing.” Light roasting is suitable for brewing in a pour-overs, a French press, or just in a cup.
Lightly roasted coffee has more acidity, and the degree of caramelization of the grain is weaker, which makes the taste brighter and the body of the drink less dense. Therefore, when brewed in alternative ways, you will get clear fruit and berry shades in taste and a lighter, but at the same time quite saturated body.
How To Determine The Quality Of Roasted Grain
Professional it is done with the instrument called colorimeter, but at home or in a coffee shop you might just as well use referential charts.
Advantages Of Fresh Roasting
During the first month after roasting, any ground coffee has the brightest and richest bouquet. The taste and aroma are preserved for three months if you store coffee in grains. This period for ground coffee is reduced to several days. With each week of storage, the aroma and taste become weaker, and the benefits of the drink decrease. That is why gourmets so value freshly roasted coffee.
Fresh roasting of green coffee beans can pleasantly surprise coffee lovers with a balanced taste, aroma, and drink quality.
- Freshly roasted coffee(dark or light roasted) has many natural antioxidants and other nutrients that create the effect of vitality and fill the body with the necessary elements.
- The unique taste of freshly roasted coffee delights even the most discerning coffee lovers. This drink retains all the nuances and bright aftertaste.
- The aroma of freshly roasted coffee does not leave any lover indifferent to pleasant sensations. You feel bouquet after grinding and brewing.
- The useful qualities of your drink remain at a high level if it was roasted no more than three weeks ago. The less time has passed since frying, the higher all the indicators of product quality.
- The naturalness of freshly roasted coffee is beyond doubt. It does not need dyes, flavors, or preservatives.
- The popularity of quality in our time makes freshly roasted coffee trendy.
- Fresh roasting is good regardless of intensity. Preserving only the best qualities of the drink makes its quality worthy.
Now, looking for coffee with high caffeine content, do not pay attention to the degree of roasting. If you want a great cup of espresso, take a portion of dark roasted coffee, but this doesn’t help you to get the strongest boost and maximum amount of caffeine. Knowing what you want from a drink you can pick the right roasting grade and enjoy a perfect cup.