CoffeeForums Coffee Facts

Coffee beans are roasted in order to bring out the wonderful aroma and the exquisite flavor in them. The green coffee beans when put through a process of roasting get transformed completely. They not only change their green color to a dark brown but also get their chemical properties altered too. The heat used in the roasting expands the coffee beans and also imparts the wonderful inviting flavor to those otherwise flavorless beans. The roasting does not affect the acidity or the protein content or even the amount of caffeine in the coffee beans. But the heat imparted during the heating just liberates the flavor and the aroma which is quite wonderful actually.

The most important part though is that the roasting makes the coffee beans quite instable in their properties. This means that the roasting should ideally be carried out only when the coffee beans are supposed to be brewed immediately or they really tend to lose out on their flavor. The usual process of roasting is done on a huge and wholesale process using huge and specialized machinery, but there are people who prefer to buy their coffee beans and roast it themselves and then brew it immediately, to enjoy a wonderful drink.

The commercial process of roasting is actually divided in to 5 different categories:

Sorting

Roasting

Cooling

Packaging

Grinding

But there are factories which skip the grinding process to go on to the packaging process, so as to cater to the consumers who prefer to get their coffee beans whole. Some people just buy the whole and roasted coffee beans to grind them in the coffee grinder, which comes along with the coffee brewing machine and then proceed with the coffee making process.

The coffee bean acts quite strangely in response to the amount of heat absorbed. Depending upon the amount and duration of the heat absorbed, the coffee beans go from a variety of colors from the raw green to yellow, and then progressing through so many shades of brown and finally attain a dark brown almost blackish brown color which is actually called as the French roast coffee bean.

The color variation and the nomenclature are listed out as below:

Light roast- This is also called as the cinnamon roast or even as the half city roast and more popularly as the England roast

Medium roast- The coffee bean which has been medium roasted is known as American roast

Full roast- Viennese or more popularly as Italian espresso

Double roast- French roast