Basics of Roasting Coffee
With the dramatic daily grind of life, most of us can’t help but wonder how we do ever make it unscathed. Well, have you thanked your friend coffee for helping you pull through all those rough mornings and all-nighters? Sometimes, coffee is all we need; it helps you feel energetic, full of vibrancy, and strong enough to take on life challenges (unlike you know who, right?)
Enough with the coffee banter.
Let’s talk about the fabulous art of coffee roasting, shall we? Here at Moona Coffee, we believe that roasting coffee beans is an incredible craft that’s easy to pick up, but takes years to become a pro. Lucky for you, we have been doing it for years now; all the coffee blends you find in our store are hand-roasted to perfection. Our talented roasters leverage all their senses and longstanding expertise to bring out truest flavours in our premium coffee blends and beans. Keep reading to learn a thing or two about what goes into your bag of Moona hand-roasted coffee blends – be it dark roasted or light roasted.
The Art of Coffee Roasting
What our skilled roasters receive are green single origin coffee beans from different parts of the world. Their hand-roasting “recipes” and methods rely heavily on a unique combination of time and heat. In essence, they liken the process to popping popcorn. Unlike popcorn, however, coffee beans pop twice – the first pop indicates when oxygen and water are escaping with carbon dioxide escaping in the second.
Firing Up the Heat
The essence of roasting coffee beans is to achieve a certain colour shade (Agtron number) and flavour. In practice, coffee beans are roasted at temperatures between 187°C and 305°C, changing from its initial green colour to dark, through tans and medium browns. Of course, they don’t go overboard with heat because all will be left is char and ashes.
Final Process
When the heating process is complete, the roasted beans are cooled using either of the two methods: quenching (water mist process) or vacuum system. The cooled roasted beans are then wrapped in foil bags to “de-gas” before being packaged and shipped directly to you.
Common Coffee Roast Shades
Cinnamon Roast: Also called New England, the cinnamon roast is geared toward mildly flavoured beans.
Light Roast: Our Fia hand-roasted coffee blend falls under this category. Coffee beans are done to a light colour to medium brown shade.
City Roast: Resultant beans have a medium brown colour with mildly oily texture.
Full City Roast: The roast delivers a medium dark brown colour with the unique oily texture.
Vienna Roast: This is where the dark roast colour starts.
French Roast: At the finish, the beans are very dark brown in colour.
Italian Roast: Roasted beans are black in colour and crisp in texture.
Spanish Roast: Deliver extremely dark beans at finish with a shiny oily texture.
