Tasman Coffee - Dark Roasted Coffee Beans

Tasman Coffee - Dark Roasted Coffee Beans

Dark roasted coffee beans are typically full-bodied, robust and flavorful.dark roasted coffee beans. Their smoky, chocolaty and nutty taste comes from the fact that the bean’s oils are largely drawn out during the roasting process. However, not all coffee roasters have the same level of skill when it comes to modulating the Maillard stage – the point in the roasting process when the sugars in the green bean start to caramelize and give off aromas. This is a critical part of the roasting process because it is when a lot of smoky flavors are imparted to the cup.

A lot of coffee is roasted past this stage, creating a bitter and burnt taste that many new drinkers dislike dark roasted coffee beans. However, if the roasting is done right, it can add a subtle amount of smokiness to the cup without giving the taste of chewing on a piece of charcoal. The goal of a good roaster is to keep the oils inside the beans while also achieving a rich, full-bodied and complex taste.

The divide between light and dark roasted coffee is an important one. It seems as if there’s a general consensus that light roasts preserve sweetness, fruitiness and floral notes from the bean’s origin while a darker roast emphasizes a bold, chocolatey, or smoky taste. But the truth is that, like any other aspect of the coffee business, there’s a lot of variation. And some roasters are experimenting with the boundaries between these two styles, blurring the distinctions to create an interesting new space for their customers.

Some of these experimenters are aiming their experiments to the middle ground, between a classic Peet’s or Starbucks dark roast and a dark roast that’s a little bit lighter than what most people think of as a typical medium roast. Others are aiming even lower, toward what we might call a reimagined light/dark balance. For example, one of our top-rated coffees this month – Green Stone’s Jlove99 Kenya (93) – was roasted almost to the point where it can be called dark by instruments (the kind of roast that would earn a light/medium reading on our scale) but ended up with a deliciously balanced taste of lavender, red currant, gently scorched cedar, and baking chocolate.

Other roasters roasted the 94-rated Kerinci Valley Sumatra that we tried, have found success with a more modulated approach to second crack. He “tried to be more flexible in the roasting,” he says, and worked to retain sweetness, floral notes, and savory depth in this darker-than-normal roast.

And still other roasters, like Tasman Coffee Roasters, who focuses on dark-roast blends that make up about 20% of his sales, are going even further into second crack and beyond, and still managing to keep the complexity of their coffees. He’s even experimenting with vacuum sealing his roasts to keep them fresh from his roasting facility in Kingston until they reach their customers, cutting down on the handling that may have otherwise dulled or masked the flavors.