Posts Tagged 'coffee roasting'

Fact 1: Coffee “shrinks”, - loses weight - during roasting, while swelling to twice the bean size.

Fact 2: The longer you roast coffee beans, the darker the colour and the higher the “shrinkage”, e.g…, the more coffee it takes to make a pound.

Fact 3: Our normal shrink is 20%; our dark roast shrinkage goes as high as 25%. Lightly roasted coffees can have shrinkage factors as low as 11%.

Fact 4: Most coffee is under-roasted as a cost cutting measure since true gourmet coffee sales have proven the consumer’s preference for “fully roasted” coffee.

Fact 5: There is an “Optimum degree of roast”, that brings out the maximum flavour characteristics for each coffee. This gives the consumer maximum aroma and a rich, full bodied taste.

Fact 6: Under-roasted coffee has a flat, green, grassy astringent flavour. Over-roasted tastes burned or “caramelized”, and the varietal flavours of the coffee are lost in the dominant taste of the roast.

We roast a little darker than most do, because we feel that our standard level of roasting (called “Full City”), achieves the optimum level of flavour.  At this level of roast, the bean has puffed to its fullest, and the seam along the side of the bean has “cracked” open.

When you roast darker, it costs more in green bean shrinkage. It is for that reason, that roasters do not roast this dark. We lose between 3% and 8% more green shrinkage than most others. We do not, however, over-roast the coffee. When you roast darker than our optimal, you start to taste the roast, instead of the coffee. This is a tactic that allows you to “mask” deficiencies of cheaper coffee beans.

This is where Espresso coffee beans and French Roasts come in - it is more the taste of the roast that consumers who like these coffees are looking for. We are on the forefront of new roast concepts. Indeed, we have developed all proprietary roasting profile and techniques!

We roast in relatively small (1,000) batches, for greater control of roast consistency. Our process combines traditional artistry with state-of-the-art technology to achieve the optimum roast level on a very consistent basis. To achieve this, we:

• Determine the optimum roast profile for a coffee
• Duplicate this optimum with computer-assisted temperature, airflow, and movement controls, and
• Provide feedback to the roaster by tasting and testing every roast immediately.