Category: Coffee Articles

Looking for a little bit of light knowledge on coffee? Here are some things that you may not know about coffee beans that you can pull out of the memory bank the next time that you share coffee with someone.

Whole bean coffee vs. ground coffee

Which to choose – whole bean or ground coffee?

Coffee starts out as whole bean and is either ground before brewing, or ground before packaging. so the question is, should I leave my coffee whole bean or have it pre-ground?

While many developments in coffee packaging have improved the freshness of ground coffee including nitrogen-flushed coffee packaging, the reality is this: coffee beans stay fresher for longer when they are whole bean than when they are ground. It is worth picking up a burr grinder and grinding directly before brewing in order to preserve the freshness of the coffee and bring out the more subtle nuances of a particular coffee. Especially if you are buying specialty coffee.

What if you freeze your ground coffee… is it still less fresh than whole bean?

I have had a lot of people ask me if they should refrigerate or freeze their ground coffee. The answer is that coffee is best stored on a cool but not cold dry atmosphere, like a pantry. Refrigeration and freezing can introduce moisture, which can cause problems with your coffee. It is better to make sure that your coffee is properly sealed for freshness using either a zipper pouch or another airtight container and keep it around room temperature. This prevents oxygen and moisture from getting in and making your coffee stale.

Roasting Coffee Beans

Roasted coffee beans vs green coffee beans

Coffee beans must be roasted prior to using them (unless you are one of those companies that adds green coffee bean extract to your drinks for a caffeine boost, but we are talking about brewed coffee). It starts out as a pale green coffee bean prior to roasting. In the picture below you can see the difference in color between a green coffee bean and a roasted coffee bean.

Ways to roast green coffee beans

The coffee that you purchase is generally roasted in a commercial coffee roaster, but coffee can also be pan roasted over a fire or on the stovetop, roasted in a small countertop coffee roaster, or even in a homemade coffee roaster like the one pictured below!

This was the roaster that I used to get started – if you are interested in learning about roasting coffee to try it out yourself, definitely contact me. My roaster was based on the Stir Crazy Turbo Oven, and if you are mechanically inclined you can build your own 1lb roaster for under $200, maybe under $100 if you are really resourceful. It is also fun to be able to mod your machine and not worry about breaking anything on an expensive machine.

Right now I have shelved my home coffee roaster and I roast my coffee beans on a commercial coffee roaster in Cleveland Ohio.

Coffee roasting basics

Roasting coffee isn’t particularly difficult, it just takes a lot of practice to get to the point where you can roast it exactly how you want and bring out specific tasting notes in a particular coffee.

You can get into a ton of detail on how to roast coffee, but as a general overview you basically apply a heat source, keep a good amount of airflow and motion to evenly roast the coffee, and aim for somewhere between 8-15 minutes per roast depending on how and what you are roasting.

You can either roast by sight and sound or use instruments to measure your roast. I highly recommend trying roasting by sight and sound at least once. There are visual and audio cues that you can go off of to know how far along in the roast you are, and it is a very grounding experience. You can also get fancy and use a professional model roaster with thermocouples and computer programs to be able to dial in your roast profile and roast your coffee beans exactly the way you want.

Types of coffee roasts

Coffee roasts are generally broken into three categories – light roast, medium roast, and dark roast, which signify how long the coffee bean is roasted – light roast coffee is roasted for less time than a medium roast coffee, which is roasted for less time than a dark roast coffee.

A light roast coffee will retain more flavors unique to the bean itself, while a darker roasted coffee will have more flavors that come from the roasting process.

Light roast coffees are more tea-like, with various possible flavor notes that come from the coffee bean itself including fruit tones, floral tones, nut tones, and grassy/herbal tones.

Dark roast coffees often have a degree of roast flavor, smokiness, chocolate tones, and a full body. There are still variations in flavor between dark roasts of different origins, but the differences may be a bit subtler.

Medium roast coffees often are balanced, have a degree of sweetness, and have some of the characteristics of both light and dark roast coffees – containing flavor notes from the coffee itself as well as characteristics picked up from the roasting process (roast, smoke, chocolate, etc.)

Types of Coffee Beans

The types of coffee beans that we roast are broken into 3 or 4 species, the most common of which are Arabica and Robusta, with some Liberica, and a debatable 4th species called Excelsa, which may actually be a sub variety and not its own species.

Arabica is by far the most common coffee bean species found in specialty coffee, but there are some quality Robustas that are worth checking out – when I was roasting on my home roaster I made a real tasty blend of a Balinese coffee and an Indian Robusta from Dean’s Beans. But in general robusta is most commonly found in espresso blends or in lower grade non-specialty coffees. And Liberica is a pretty cool coffee but is rare to come across from North American coffee roasters. I roasted a pretty tasty Liberican coffee from Len’s coffee from the Phillipines.

Coffee Origins

Coffee requires a particular climate to grow, which can be found in what is referred to as the coffee belt – a strip of the world around the equator that expands north and south of the equator roughly 25 degrees. Coffee also grows differently in different elevations, with higher elevations often producing higher quality coffees (up to a point).

When you hear the word “origin” when referring to a particular coffee bean, that is referring to the country that the coffee comes from. Single-origin coffee therefore means coffee from one particular country that is not blended with coffee from another country.

Specialty Coffee Origins

There are a ton of coffee origins, but some of the most popular for specialty coffee are Columbia, Brazil, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kenya, Peru, Mexico, and Indonesia (this is where Sumatran coffee comes from – a particular island in Indonesia). There are over 50 coffee growing nations so there are plenty that I have not included in my list.

Beyond origin, you can get more specific down to region, processing station, and farm, depending on the traceability of a given coffee.

End (or beginning?) of todays coffee bean lesson!

Like what you read? You can shop from my coffees using the origin links above or browse all coffee here.