Coffee Roasting
Unroasted coffee beans boast all of the coffee’s acid, protein and caffeine with its taste unexplored. Roasting triggers the complex chemical and physical reaction within the coffee beans that transforms carbohydrates and fats releasing its aromatic oils burning most of its moisture and carbon dioxide. Roasting the coffee beans makes sugar, fats and starches of the green beans to emulsify, caramelize and transformed into volatile oils that make coffee beans much of its rich flavour and aroma unlocking each special coffee flavour. When roasting the green beans expand to nearly twice its size. changing in colour, taste, aroma and density.
The process of roasting involves a very meticulous task. The whole thing starts from hand picking the ripe coffee cherries and undergoes a process called pulping, where the green beans are dumped into a hopper where outer skin is removed and the beans are then cleaned and then poured into a roaster. Roasted into its desired darkness.
When coffee beans have a lighter roast they are likely to be sharper taste and more acidic than beans who have darker roast. Darker roasted beans have a fuller flavour, but if the coffee beans are over roasted it more likely to get a smoky or burned flavour which would be undesirable. An interesting fact is that, beans who have darker roast actually have less caffeine than the lighter roasted beans.
Roasting coffee beans in Europe
> Italian Roast
This type of roast is darker in colour than most roast and therefore develops and intense, full-body flavour blended from the coffees of Latin America and the Pacific origin. The aroma of Italian roast is balance and complex and you can notice the coffee beans glimmer with the natural oils coming out from the beans. Most of the flavour oils are brought to the surface of the beans as the natural acidity. The term ‘Italian Roast’ from the dark roasting technique that is more common part in Southern Italy because coffee in Northern Italy tend to be a bit lighter. Italian roast coffee is also great for making authentic espresso.
> French Roast
Probably the darkest roast as denoted in the United States with high grown top quality arabica, the result is a intense cup of coffee. These type of roasting are very dark roasts and the coffee beans are nearly black in colour. Much of the sugar in the beans has been caramelized and toasted meticulously. French roast have extremely bold and smoky flavour. The surface of the roasted beans is generally very oily and French roast coffee the roasting process is so intense that it is hard to taste the roasted bean itself. Though the flavour is strong the roasted beans does not have a high caffeine. Most Americans would turn their noses up to coffee this overcooked.
> Espresso Roast
Espresso is actually made a blend of beans roasted from very light from very dark. Espresso is reached when the sweetness and aroma of the coffee while the bitterness and acidity is minimized. At this stage of roasting the beans are very dark but not black. The different levels of espresso roast differ widely. Some coffee shops have even popularized darker roast in North America and all over the world, but the latest trend in espresso roast is to match the roast level of every bean type. This then would mean imply that the preferred way of roasting is lesser concerned with the roast colour but is now more inclined with the best extracted flavour in each cup of every types of bean.