Is dark roasting mostly done to mask poor beans?

Most Dreambeans blends are medium roast.

Very often when I go into a coffee shop I’ve never visited before, my heart sinks the moment I see the beans hopper. If the hopper is filled with black, dark-roasted, shiny, oily beans (as very many of them are) well then the chances of getting a decent cup of coffee are vanishingly small. The fact is that the most common motivation to dark roast coffee is to hide the flaws and mask the poor quality of inferior beans. When coffee is dark-roasted, the blaring taste of carbonised coffee is practically all you can taste. No subtlety, no complexity, no depth. Just an overwhelming blare of burnt coffee that spreads over everything. Some people think this is how coffee should be, and good luck to them. Each to their own. Some people also equate the strong carbon flavour with the strength of the coffee or the caffeine level ” You can really taste the caffeine” etc. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, over-roasting actually diminishes the caffeine levels in the coffee. Our Rising Tide blend, for example is very strong in caffeine yet it is as smooth as silk and has all the complex flavour and of a great medium roast.

Now, dark-roasted coffee can occasionally be excellent and even sublime. Given top-notch beans, a skilled roaster can produce a dark roasted mix that is flavourful, smooth, fulfilling, and pleasing to the aroma and mouth. This is why in the later half of the 20th century, dark roasted beans were so widely used in the best gourmet roasts from France and Italy. Unfortunately, these high-quality, expertly roasted dark roasts are all but extinct, having been replaced by a completely new breed of coffee that is mass-produced, greasy, partially carbonated, and, let’s be honest, pretty nasty.

Dark roasting hides a multitude

The truth is that the simplest way to hide the flaws and mask the most unpleasant aspects of inferior beans is to roast a subpar coffee to the point of practically burning it. The initial carbonised, woody taste note usually followed by a flat, bitter aftertaste and an unpleasant feeling of ashiness on the tongue. These are the tell-tale symptoms of subpar coffee that has been over-roasted to cover up its flaws. These coffees lack depth, nuance, and all the other qualities that elevate ordinary coffee to amazing, enhancing your mood and improving your day.

Great coffee need not cost the Earth

Here at Dreambeans / Greenbean, we are huge fans of coffee, thus it really pains us to see how most roasters overlook the exquisite, nuanced, and delicate beans that only cost a few cents more per kilogram, to buy the mass-market unimpressive beans that they over-roast into tasteless, unsatisfying coffee. Although we know why they do it, it is still sad to see. And so many coffee drinkers never get to drink anything else. We went on a family holiday in France this year and we couldn’t get over how bad the coffee was in nearly every place we ate. Really unpleasant stuff in some otherwise very good cafes and restaurants. It’s hard to reconcile the serious effort put into the food and service and the slapdash approach to coffee, which is often the last (and abiding) impression of a restaurant  that the customer will have.

Of course, if you are going to ruin the coffee in the roaster, it really doesn’t matter how you handle the coffee, how you store it, or whether you leave it on the shelf for a few weeks before shipping it out. If you’re going to destroy the texture and structure of the beans in the roaster by increasing the temperature after the first bean crack and if you’re going to run the roaster on as the beans shrink and carbonise, well then you might as well just buy the cheap stuff. This is why we don’t dark roast. We let the flavour and subtlety of great quality shine through.

Making a fine medium roast requires more effort, greater skill, and, most importantly, better beans. Almost all of our coffee is medium roasted; fine, bright beans, each variety separately roasted to the precise pinnacle of its perfection and combined with other origins that have been handled in the same way. Even though it takes more time and effort to do it this way, it is always worthwhile.  It’s the only way to achieve delicate and exquisite flavors, finishes, and aromas. We choose beans that produce that richness, depth, and strength without sacrificing their delicacy and body using our skill in sourcing and blending. It’s unfortunate that more roasters don’t follow suit.

Let the magic in the beans shine through

Check the color of the beans in the bean hopper above the grinder the next time you’re in a coffee shop. It is now uncommon to find well roasted beans because over the past 15 years, all of the mass-market big bulk roasters have been producing subpar dark roasts. When I arrive at a new cafe for the first time, I always glance at the bean hopper. Nowadays, finding bright, medium-roasted beans is becoming increasingly rare. It’s always nice when you get a surprise because you know that the beans have had a chance to keep their flavour, uniqueness, and their magic.

By Pat McArdle.