WHAT'S THE DIFFEREENCE BETWEEN LIGHT, MEDIUM, AND DARK COFFEE
won't bore you with the chemical reactions that occur during coffee roasting, as they are pretty complex. To simplify it all, a roast profile determines your taste experience when drinking a cup of coffee. We do countless sample roasts on a new bean selection to choose which profile fits it best.
All profiles will fit within 3 different color ranges: Light Roasts, Medium Roasts, and Dark Roasts.
Light Roast Coffee
Light roast coffee is a light brown color and has no oil on the surface of the beans. Typically, these coffees have an intense acidity, a mellow body, and bright distinct flavors.
These coffees are roasted in order to preserve the unique characteristics of the bean. We only use high mountain grown beans sourced from the best small single origin farmers or woman's co-ops. These beans can produce a very wide variety of flavors, aromas, aftertastes. Our Costa Rica is a perfect example of a light roast.
Light roasting is favored by specialty roasters for its ability to bring more vibrant, unique flavors out of coffees. They highlight the unique characteristics of a coffee’s origin more than any other roast style.
Other names for light roasts that have slightly different color variations are cinnamon, light city, and half city
Want to try our light roasts? Click Here
Medium Roast Coffee
Medium roast coffee is a brown color and rarely has an oily surface. These coffees have a medium acidity and body, as well as a rounded flavor profile.
The medium roast level also preserves the unique flavors of the coffee’s origin, and it also begins to reach into the deep caramel sweetness of a longer roast. As a result, these coffees are balanced, well rounded, and are slightly darker and sweeter.
We love medium roasts because they are more approachable than light roasts to the average coffee drinker. They’re less acidic and intense, but still can showcase a coffee’s natural flavor profile. One of our favorite medium roasts is our Organic Mexico.
Medium roast coffees reach 400-430 degrees Fahrenheit and are typically roasted a little beyond first crack, but not all the way to second crack.
Other names include: regular roast, American roast, city roast.
Want to try our medium roasts? Click Here
Dark Roast Coffee
Dark roast coffee is a dark brown color and often has an oily surface. Dark roast coffees have low acidity, heavy body, and tend to reveal deeper, darker flavors.
Coffees roasted to this level will not have many of their origin characteristics left, but that doesn’t mean that these are bland and boring. Some coffees such as SUMATRA really lend themselves to a dark roast and they will highlight with chocolatey, nutty, and caramel flavors.
The difference between light and dark roast coffee is significant. We suggest that you try a light and a dark coffee side-by-side to really understand the difference.
We don't feature many dark roast offerings. The flavor differences between one and another will lack much flavor diversity, so there’s no reason to have many.
In the past dark roasting coffee was just a way of hiding poor quality coffee. However times have changed. Our goal isn’t to roast away bad flavors, rather to develop deeper, darker tasty ones.
Dark roast coffees reach 430-450 degrees Fahrenheit in the roaster and typically reach second crack, if not a little beyond.
Other names include: full city, vienna roast, espresso roast
Want to try our dark roasts? Click Here
Other Coffee Roast Levels
French roast, italian roast, continental roast, New Orleans - these are all darker than dark. These coffees are often black as night and are very oily on the surface.
Specialty roasters never roast their expensive, carefully chosen beans this dark. It’d be a waste of excellent tasting coffee. We don’t suggest you ever buy beans roasted this dark - unless you just like the taste of liquid charcoal.
The picture below may look familiar. Oils oozing out of the bean is not a sign of quality. It is a sign that the coffee has been burned and over-developed. Certain large brans whose will remain nameless do this so they have a uniform taste in every on of their cafe's and and every cup will taste the same regardless of what part of the country they are served.
Simply put.... we just don't waste our high quality beans to this type of profile!
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