Many roasters roast their coffees the same way. Meaning they might have 8 coffees that they roast to Full City, Italian and a couple to espresso.

I know this because almost every roaster I've helped to develop roast profiles for, came to me this way. I have other complimentary evidence to offer as well, coffee drinkers. If I had a nickel every time someone asked for my "darkest" roast, well yeah, I'd be rich.

Most Americans have been conditioned to drink, and this is my opinion, over-roasted coffee. So it's natural that I get to have conversations about my views on roasting specialty single origin Arabica coffees.

The simple truth is that every genus of coffee, from every farm, for each season, has a roast profile (terminal temperature) that will exhibit the most positive and least negative amounts of characteristics. It's finding this unique temperature for each coffee that shows its true profile.

This goes a step further, I roast coffee to be pressed as well as for espresso. Potentially, each bean has two roast profiles because they are extracted differently. Sounds a bit complicated, but only for the roaster, the coffee drinker just gets to enjoy a great cup of coffee.

To find the perfect temperature for each coffee takes time and tasting. I use a roasting method that I call Bracket roasting. I roast a coffee to 420, 430 & 440 degrees farenhieght. They all get blind cupped and then we look at the cupping notes to determine the best to worst. Then we reveal the profiles and determine what temperature to roast next. In this fictitious example we'll say 430 was best and 440 was second best, so we'll roast the next sample to 435. Cup that and see how that compares until we get to the best temperature, let's call it 432.

So my fictitious El Salvador Yellow Bourbon wants 432 degrees, losses 14.2% weight, and cracks @ 394 degrees. I track all this information and a few more bits on every roast to insure consistency. On every bag of coffee you buy from BeanGuru, you'll see the actual roast profile right on the bag. Which means you can buy the green beans from me and home roast your coffee perfectly, or just have me roast it for you!

I'll write a follow up article that will have more detail about actual examples. You can also buy Brackets with my cupping notes so you can cup the coffee and compare your notes to mine and see first hand how this works.

Also, if you find yourself in Tucson, make sure to attend one of my Coffee 101 classes!

Happy drinking, BeanGuru