Coffee Roasting Profiles – Light, Medium, and Dark Roast

You hear a lot of people mentioning how much they love Dark roast. What about medium and light roast coffees? What makes a light, medium and dark roast unique and different?
 
Coffee Roasting Profiles
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Quick outline before we dive into light, medium and dark roast coffees. Each coffee roasted at Aveley Farms Coffee Roasters is roasted to bring out the intended flavors or each origin, altitude, processing method and more. A high altitude wet processed coffee from Kenya will have a different roast profile than a lower altitude natural pulped coffee from Brazil. The below info is an outline of the general principles and differences between each light, medium and dark roasted coffees.

Photo of green coffee through French Roast (Photo Sweet Marias)

Light Roast Coffee
 
Light roast coffees commonly called City and City+ roast are roast levels on the lighter spectrum or the scale. Generally you will be able to pick up more distinct flavors and the origin of the coffee when it is a lighter roast. The cups are brighter and more acidic and will have more of a pop than a traditional French roast. This leads to a lively cup of coffee and highlights fruitier and floral notes. The specialty coffee industry tends to be on the lighter side highlighting the coffee’s origin and processing methods. Light roast are not for everyone, but it is a good way to challenge your perception of the traditional cup of coffee.
 
Medium Roast Coffee
 
Medium Roast fall in the Full City to Full City+ spectrum on the roast scale. Full City roast tend to reduce the acidity levels in the cup the longer you roast the beans. This results in a more balanced and refined cup overall. Depending on origin and processing methods, medium roast tend to be on the smoother and sweeter side. You will still pick up hints of origin and some lighter notes in medium roast, but it is not as prominent as light roast coffees. Medium roast tend to be a very popular roast for most coffees as this profile will highlight its origin and processing method, but result in a more balanced, less polarizing cup.

 Dark Roast Coffee

Dark Roast coffee has the least amount of caffeine compared to lighter roasted coffees. There seems to be an understanding that dark roast has the most caffeine since it is a bold, bitter, big bodied cup of coffee. The longer you roast a coffee you are burning sugars and as a result caffeine from the coffee. Dark roast do have their place and can complement coffees profiles. However, the longer you roast a coffee you are losing its origin flavors and picking up ‘roast’ flavors. As coffee continues to roast it releases carbon dioxide within the bean resulting in ‘second crack’ (more on this in a later post), resulting in French/Vienna roast profiles. The darker the roast, the more you will notice oil on the beans. This oil can be a sign of old coffee if you purchase prepackaged coffee at a store.
 
So which roast profiles do you like? At Aveley Farms Coffee Roasters we encourage you to explore and try different roast profiles to expand your coffee knowledge and explore more origins. Feel free to reach out with any questions, corey@aveleyfarmscoffee.com.