As the beans roast, various things happen, but two of the most important are that caffeine diminishes and oils exude. The longer the roast, the darker the bean. If ever you smell a terrible odor of burnt toast in your neighborhood, some roaster, somewhere, has failed to properly tend their roast.Īs beans roast, they darken into the brown beans you find in the store. Artisanal roasters roast to order, which means they don’t roast the coffee until it has been ordered, and then deliver the freshly roasted coffee to the consumer within a day or two. Most commercial roasteries use gas-powered drum roasters, and artisanal roasters use smaller machines than industrial roasters, producing up to 20 lbs. Through vast amounts of experimentation, each roaster develops roasting profiles for each bean and each blend. Literally, green, in all shades, depending on their origin. When coffee beans arrive at the roastery, they are green. There is no such thing as an “espresso bean.” There’s lots more to know about coffee beans – shade-grown, mountain-grown, wet-processed or dry-processed, hand-picked or strip-picked, organic or conventional, Fair Trade, Swiss Water decaffeinated, civet coffee (look it up) and so on. Roasters either use a single-origin arabica bean or mix beans together in custom blends. Ethiopian, Mexican, Peru, Columbian, Sumatra, Indonesia, Java and Kona are all named for the places they are grown. Varietals of arabica are also named for their origin. Most cheap commercial coffees are robustas. There are many varietals, the most common being arabica, which most high-end roasters use, and robusta, which have twice the caffeine but half the flavor. They grow inside a fruit, and so are actually a pit. Coffee “beans” are actually the seed of the coffee plant. Which, in fact, aren’t even beans at all. All commercial roasters import their beans. Hence, there is no such thing as a locally-grown coffee bean, although with climate change, that probably won’t be true forever. While coffee beans can be coaxed to grow at other latitudes, it’s cost-prohibitive to do so. The southernmost tip of Italy is 37 degrees north. For reference, Arcata is 40 degrees north of the equator. Here’s what you need to know to be a coffee connoisseur.įirst, there is no such thing as “expresso.” It’s called “espresso.”Ĭoffee beans grow in the bean belt, which embraces the globe between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, 23 degrees north and south, respectively, of the equator. Instead, you will likely be offered fantastic locally-roasted coffees. You run no risk, in Arcata, of being subjected to this terrible not-Italian-bean coffee, as there are, miraculously, no nationally franchised coffee shops here. She, not knowing, asked the other baristas, one of whom answered, “Um, I think they’re Italian?” Not being a morning person, I, ironically, didn’t have time to make my morning coffee, so I stopped by a coffee shop that is part of a ubiquitous nationwide-wide chain that was, at that time, pushing their “anniversary roast.” I asked the barista which beans were in it. This involved getting up really early to set up the coffee booth. Photo by Matt Filar.Ībout a year ago, I attended a convention in Las Vegas. Kinetic Koffee roaster Kelly Brannon at the helm of Diedre, the Diedrich roaster.
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