I mean people can drink coffee however they want, but dark roasting beans absolutely destroys the majority of flavors within the bean. There’s no denying that. It’s similar to eating a steak well done. People do it, and it’s even very common in certain countries. But it’s removing the majority of flavor. I don’t see how anyone could deny that.
Or you could argue it eliminates the flavor that needs to be eliminated; using your steak analogy from a sibling comment, drinking medium/light roast may be like eating the steak raw or frozen. Totally different flavor from medium-rare, just not the one many people want.
I recently had an unwitting encounter with medium roast (at the same "semi-fancy" price point as I typically buy) when my wife put some fresh beans in our coffee container. First cup I made, I was wondering why the coffee tastes so bad, bad enough for me to dump it. There were all those weird sour/almost soda like notes that should not be in coffee. Then I got suspicious about the look of the beans, then I asked my wife... "I decided it would be good to try something new" ;)
I have this problem. I’ve tried for years to ‘acquire’ whatever the acquired taste is in these fancy coffees, but it just tastes of compost or dung and makes me feel like I’m drinking the water from the bottom of my kitchen bin. I would never deny it’s a more complex taste and differentiated across different beans, I just can’t force myself not to gag and actually finish a cup of this fetid water.
The most bizarre coffee I've ever had was from the Papua New Guinea Baroida Estate. STRONG tasting notes of tomato. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I love weird flavours like that. Very interesting coffee.
I'm drinking some Papua New Guinea right now that I roasted myself, it's dry processed like many Ethiopian coffees are, and it tastes like berries and spice. The different origin flavors that can be found through different processing methods and soil conditions are amazing. There's so much variety. As a hobby roaster I value my relationship with coffee too much to deliberately drink bad stuff.
fyi, different roasts require different grinds, and changing bean roasts without changing grind can definitely lead to bad coffee (even if the beans are high quality). In general, you have to tune in your grind for each roast.
To me, light roasts taste like somebody squeezed half a lemon into my cup of coffee. That bright floral/citrus flavor is something I absolutely do not want in my morning brew. I crave that slightly bitter, heavy body, chocolate/nutty flavor that I associate with dark roasts.
My thoughts exactly. Now I drink espresso coffee in normal mugs, without coffee or sugar. There's a lot of flavour in coffee that's masked with milk and sugar. Spicy notes, chocolatey notes. Even mildly fruity notes, but the more bitter, the better.
What you two are describing may be the addition of Robusta commonly found in Italian espresso blends and more. It's what gives those blends that bitter kick. If that's what you're after, try seeking out blends with 5-10% Robusta.
I also like coffee mixed with chicory in the New Orleans style for that bitter kick. The New Orleans Cafe du Monde (besides brewing it on site) also sells the mixture in some supermarkets for brewing at home.
I just had some pecan praline coffee that was amazing. Bottom shelf of the grocery store. I only got it because nothing else was on sale... It might be my new go-to for a while. Give it a shot if you can find it
There's degrees between lightest roast possible and dark roast. Also, bean origin has such a huge impact on taste, you don't need to have floral or citrus flavors even if it is on the lighter side.
I roast some coffee that could be considered to be 'light' from a color/roast temp perspective but has absolutely none of the floral/citrus notes that you talk about. It depends so much on the beans. It ends up chocolatey and vanilla, with a medium body. Very little acidic taste. On the other hand, there's plenty of coffee that is just a punch of acid.
As others have stated, you lose so much bean origin character the further into the roast you get and lose what makes the bean itself special.
I’m so happy to hear someone else say this. I’m almost ashamed of my preference for medium to the darker side of medium roast. I cannot stand the fruity flavor that’s in vogue these days—I get that it’s more complex and has more intricate flavors, but it’s just not the comforting caramel-y roast that I’m accustomed to.
You should also check if your beans are washed or naturally processed - this also has significant effect on the taste. Natural/dry processing is the one that will get you a heavier body and will hide acidic notes.
It's not undeniable. Dark roasts are much more difficult to get right and be consistent with. Many roasters can't do it, so they're happy to promote the idea that people who like dark roasts are coffee dilettantes. To me, it's similar to how so many American microbreweries go crazy with hops.
> To me, it's similar to how so many American microbreweries go crazy with hops.
Every "hopocalypse" type beer is utterly forgettable. It's like when you go to some tourist-y small town in the Midwestern US and the gift shop has five hundred different INSANELY HOT SAUCES no one's heard of.
I guess "hoppy" is a powerful, accessible flavor that anyone can easily make, like squeezing a bottle of Sriracha onto some noodles.
This is overly dismissive of certain styles, the same could be said for any popular style like yet another chocolatey syrupy Imperial Stout, or yet another crisp Pilsner.
Hoppy is anything but accessible, in my experience, clearly some people love them but most casual drinkers do not. I personally find certain DIPAs to be a near religious experience but others can’t stand them. To each their own.
Sorry, but the modern form of DIPA most definitely is one of the most accessible forms of craft beer. They usually aim for low to no kettle hops, only whirpool and high levels of rx hopping. Fermentation, mash and grist all serve to make the beer sweet. The end result: a beer low in bitterness, silky, extremely sweet (these beers can finish above 1.030) with intense fruity notes.
That is nothing like the DIPAs I am familiar with which are typically very dry and strongly hopped, with only enough sweetness to make it palatable. What you describe sounds to me more like Barleywine, though admittedly the style has wide interpretation. I also think we may have very different definitions of the word “accessible”.
I would say, medium roast is difficult to get right, too often, the inside part of the bean is like charcoal. Dark roast is plainly bad, when I see really shinny beans, I know it'll be awful. I rather have robusta blend then a dark roast or badly roast medium.
I like my steaks borderline completely raw, but I’ll admit it’s because I’ve been around steak snobs and a voice in the back of my mind won’t allow it any other way.
But I’ll also admit that heavily browned beef has a distinctive flavor and quality very different from barely cooked steak. Imagine a sandwich with slightly crispy, well cooked beef and all its drippings. Now imagine one with a slice of meat that’s rare and soggy.
Coffee is similar. Different roasts for different desires and uses. There is a point where it is objectively burnt, but not all dark roasts are burnt.
> I like my steaks borderline completely raw, but I’ll admit it’s because I’ve been around steak snobs
I usually like my steaks straight up raw, but most steak snobs I know insist on medium-rare as the "perfect" temperature. Truthfully, I won't usually complain about anything from tartare to medium, and you're right, the different amount of doneness has a drastic effect on flavors and sometimes you just want one flavor profile or another.
If it has lots of connective tissue like a ribeye, I want medium rare, preferably gotten that way over a long time at low heat then seared, if it doesn't, like a filet, I want it cold and raw.
>Now imagine one with a slice of meat that’s rare and soggy.
Bit of a false dichotomy here. I would take a medium sandwich here. Medium gets you the firmness that you’re hinting that you want for a sandwich without turning it into beef jerky.
no way! i drink exclusively light roast espresso. yes, the sourness is pretty much always there. but there's blueberry (my personal favorite), red berries, tea, lemon, cinnamon. getting a balanced light roast espresso requires going much higher ratio to get a high enough extraction. try upping the temp to 95*C and go for 1:3 or higher.
I've tried and tried to experience the flavor notes you mention across many different coffees from many different roasters, all sorts of brewing methods and settings, but cannot.
I can taste sour, burnt, and something in the middle that I really like, and that's about it.
Not a scientific experiment by any means, but there seems to be more people like me who cannot taste these flavors in coffee than you.
i highly recommend cupping coffee, or at least trying 2-4 different coffees at the same time. you have to compare them side by side, that's where the notes make themselves apparent. trying only one at a time will not be sufficient as the differences can be subtle when recalled only from memory.
believe me, i don't have a super palette and have a hard time finding the right notes myself. you can try tasting while looking at the SCA coffee wheel[1], using the inner ring for broad categories.
Maybe I've just had a few bad light roasts? It seems like really light sour roasts are really trendy with additives that cover up or mesh with the taste. Cappuccino/Mocha etc.
I'll keep trying it because I do quite enjoy bitter and roasted flavors but the straight light-roasted espresso I got most recently was verging on undrinkable.
Mm, you're just prescribing preferences I think. You're not wrong that it begins to remove and change the flavors, but that's what some people prefer. It's different to steak as well, in that the bean starts with a flavour profile unique to that bean, and the roast alters it. So roasting different times and temps will yield different results depending on the bean, and sometimes you start with a bean you don't like the flavour of and end up with one you do.
Dark roasts and light roasts and everything in between are common here in Australia, where we have a fairly rich history with espresso coffee.
Notwithstanding that this isn't measured whatsoever, it also develops flavor. It's just that it becomes more one-note. You won't taste fruitiness or other delicate things, but I don't want my coffee to taste like fruity tea. Neither do most people.
We all prefer the concept of free will, but the science is consistent: we tend to grow neurons to like the taste of things that increase dopaminergic neurotransmission in the frontal cortex, even if our first taste experience of them is downright awful.
Many things affect that, though. Someone in a constant state of anxiety and stress is running on adrenergic circuits instead of dopaminergic, and thus will probably like the taste of poppy seeds, because the minuscule amounts of opiate alkaloids will make an ever so slight dent on that adrenergic activity and allow dopaminergic activity to dominate.
It’s a similar story for coffee, but there is a lot of variability both in coffee and drinker. Someone with a high activity MAO-A gene variant will clear dopamine and other neurotransmitters from the brain more quickly. Darker roasts contain more MAO-A inhibitors, and so they are more commonly preferred by people with such gene variants.
Same goes for MAO-B; inhibitors for it are more likely to be found in lighter roasts with floral overtones.
> we tend to grow neurons to like the taste of things that increase dopaminergic neurotransmission in the frontal cortex, even if our first taste experience of them is downright awful.
High caffeine intake (more represented in medium roast) increases dopamine response in the first place. Notwithstanding that a jolt doesn't make one incapable of judging taste. I've experienced different roasts consistently over different periods of time and ultimately favor dark (done right) all things remaining equal.
I’m not projecting; you’re uninformed. Caffeine is only responsible for a part of the effects of coffee. There are dozens if not hundreds of other psychoactive substances there, all acting in unison.
Your preference towards darker roasts suggests the presence of high-activity MAOA/B gene variants in your genome. This hypothesis is, fortunately, easy to validate.
> Caffeine is only responsible for a part of the effects of coffee.
You mentioned dopaminergic neurotransmission, specifically.
Notwithstanding that you've shared no compelling source (and I expect none), this is redundant - I like the taste of dark roast, the validity of that sentiment isn't contingent on genes. By no objective measure is one roast better tasting beyond mere experience. It's basically irrelevant whether I do possess those genes or not. Whether we like ANYTHING depends on our genes, so to say "you only like x because of genes" is a moot point - if entire cultures are primarily drinking dark, who's the real genetic outlier?
Disparaging why someone likes it doesn't make you more right. If anything, attacking their reason for liking it (rather than the relative merits of liking one flavour profile versus another) makes you more wrong: It signifies that you've run out of meaningful things to say and must now attack the character / moral fiber of the person in question to get anywhere.
