Choosing a roast that fits your tastes.

Coffee Tip # 3

Coffee beans are unlocked by the roasting process. As green coffee is roasted it goes from being a hard little light green bean with little taste to how it tastes when you brew up a cup of your favorite New Roots coffee, aw...(wait for it)...some!

Our coffee tip this week is a quick guide to coffee roasts.

Light Roast

After coffee reaches the "first crack" in the roasting process at about 380 degrees F, it begins to develop as a light roast coffee. This is generally considered the lightest coffee most people would want to drink.

Light Roast Characteristics

High Acidity, medium body, low sweetness and maximum amount of origin characteristics.
This means that when you brew a cup of our light roast Ethiopia Yergecheffe you get a full dose of the citrus, floral and melon notes that make a great referred sing.

Medium Roast

Medium Roast coffee can also be referred to as a full city roast. This is the point around when the coffee reaches "second crack" and "pops" a second time. This is the lowest level that is usually used for an espresso blend.

Medium Roast Characteristics

Fully developed aroma and complexity, medium acidity and increased sweetness
Our Sawtooth Autumn Blend, Colombia Decaf and Rwanda are medium roasts.

Dark Roast

Little coffees from the green mermaid place (*bucks) fall below this roast level. My mentor, Victor Allen Mondry, got me hooked on light and medium roast, but we do offer a few dark roast coffees. At this roast level, the beans have a shiny surface and can have oil droplets on the outside of the bean.

Dark Roast Characteristics

Low acidity, full aroma, full body, full sweetness and the minimum amount of origin characteristics
Our Midnight Blend, Peru and Sumatra at dark roast coffees, with the Sumatra being the darkest.

Beyond

After this you reach super dark roast territory which includes French and Italian Roasts. We don't offer any beans this dark because at this point all of the origins just seem to taste the same. It's just not our style, because all of the hard work we did sourcing exceptional beans kind of goes of the chimney.

Enjoy your Autumn,

Joseph Zimmermann
New Roots Coffee Company