There’s nothing wrong with a good dark roast. But if you want to appreciate coffee the way some people appreciate wine, medium roasts are the way to go.
Let us explain...
We're going to use the wine analogy a lot. (We'll even use a toast analogy, but more on that later.)
In coffee and wine, it all starts with the plant. Brewing methods matter. So does winemaking. But any winemaker will tell you the fruit is most important. For baristas, it's the bean.
Coffee beans (which are the seeds of a cherry-like fruit) take their character from the land on which they’re grown, just like wine grapes do.
Soil, altitude, shade—these all combine to give coffee beans qualities that are different from coffee beans grown in any other place. Wine people call it terroir.
That’s what makes wine interesting. Every wine is different. Coffee can be the same way—as long as it isn’t roasted too dark.
Again, there’s nothing wrong with dark roast. It just makes it harder to taste what makes each coffee unique.
Now we’re getting to the toast analogy! Look at all these different types of bread. We have white bread, multigrain, rye, sourdough, ciabatta and a bunch of others...
Taste each one, and you’ll find that each type of bread has a unique taste that sets it apart from all the others. But what happens if you slide them into the toaster and set the toaster to high?
They’ll all come out brown, and they’ll all taste like…toast. In a blind taste test, you’ll have a harder time distinguishing white bread from rye when they’re both well toasted.
This is also what happens with dark roast coffee. The same chemical reaction that makes well-toasted breads taste similar, also makes coffees taste similar.
You taste the roast, not the bean.
If you’re training your palate to appreciate unique coffees from all over the world, you’d rather taste the bean than the roast. Lighter roasted coffees preserve the unique character of the bean.
So next time you’re at your local coffee roaster, skip the dark roast and try asking for a medium roast. In fact, ask for three! Brew them all the same way and see if you can tell the difference.