Coffee and Roasting Styles at
Greene’s Beans Café
Our coffee remains in its ‘green’ state - until we roast it - because
we can keep for a fairly long time without loss of quality or taste. Once roasted,
however, the coffee should be used quickly before fresh roast flavor fades. Green coffee has little resemblance to the
roasted product. Soft and spongy to the bite, it smells green, almost 'grassy.'
Roasting produces numerous chemical changes as beans
rapidly reach high temperatures. The process, a technical and skilled craft, approaches
an art form. It takes years of training to become an expert roaster with the
ability to 'read' the beans and make decisions with split second timing. The
difference between perfectly roasted coffee and a ruined batch can be a matter
of seconds.
At the peak of the process, the beans have lost much of
their moisture and about 20% of their weight. They have developed the complex
components which produce their tell-tale rich aromas and flavors. The roasted
beans are crunchy to the bite and are ready to be ground and brewed.
Various roast styles depend upon individual roastmasters. Although little
industry standardization exists, four roast
categories contain most of the popular
roast styles: light, medium, medium-dark and dark. Because of the subjectivity of each
person’s palate and preferences, it takes some experimentation for the consumer
to find the perfect roast profile, and preferences can change from time to
time. Some coffee consumers like to change it up continuously, trying beans from
various sources at different roast levels.
The lighter roasts generally produce non-oily bean and a mild cup of coffee with
a more crisp edge. Lighter roasts can be referred to as: Light City,
Half City,
New England, or Cinnamon.
Medium roasts are darker; the beans show no oils and
have somewhat more complexity, stronger flavors, and slightly less acidity than
the light roasts. This roast level is also called American Roast because it is very popular in the States.
Other designations are: City Roast or
Breakfast Roast.
Medium-dark roasts have a pronounced and somewhat stronger
flavor and aroma - with a bittersweet after taste which comes from a slight
carbonization of the bean; this roast generally shows some sheen of oil on its
surface. This level is generally called Full City,
but sometimes names like Viennese, French, High and Continental get used for
this roast level.
The dark roast produces very shiny black beans with lots of oil on the surface
and a pronounced bitterness. This darkest and most carbonized of all the roasts
produces a full flavor and strong cup of coffee. Dark roasts can range from
slightly dark black beans to charred. Most people experience this roast level
as the “strongest” coffee roast, although, in relative terms, acidity and
caffeine levels are lower in the darker roasts. Market names for this level
include: French, High, Continental, Espresso, European, Viennese, Italian,
and New Orleans.
We roast much of Greene’s Beans coffee to the ‘City Roast’ level. We believe that
the temperature range which produces this level - somewhere between the
proverbial ‘first crack’ and ‘second crack’ – elicits an ideal flavor profile
and displays the corresponding ‘gout de terroir’ (taste of the soil) of most
specialty grade Arabica coffees. Having said that, some customers prefer the
darker roasts and we accommodate those tastes by keeping a few darker roast
coffees – whose profiles remain pleasant at the darker roast levels -
available.
Please note that we consider the tendency to call the darker roasts “Espresso”
roasts to be misleading because any coffee can be consumed as espresso. That is
not to say that any coffee can make an excellent espresso. Espresso coffee has vastly different traits
than that of drip, French press, or other styles of brewing and espresso
drinkers have different expectations.
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