I went down to my local barista and talked to the owners a bit about this topic...
They basically explained to me about Roasting (Dark, medium, light).
They compared it to sauteing onions.
If you saute them heavily they caramelize and turn into sugar, which tastes good, but you lose most of the onion flavor.
This is Dark roast, which most people like.
If you saute them a bit less, they don't fully caramelize and you retain some of the onion flavor, which most real onion lovers want to taste.
Especially when tasting different types of onions from around the world.
Light roast is retaining even more of the onion (or coffee bean) varietal flavor, but the masses don't tend to have the palate or want to taste the onion/bean so much.
That explanation, might be a bit off, but it made sense when explained this way.
So basically, they said if you really want to impress someone, then go get a decent roaster yourself.
Find a coffee bean importer and purchase some green coffee beans imported form different regions. This is where you can spend more for higher end beans (Blue Mountain, they suggested).
Then experiment with roasting and the different levels (cracks) of achieving different flavors.
Finding the perfect combo here is where you can achieve perfection, at least to your palate and taste range.
This, I guess was the answer I was looking for. Not the easy one, but probably the most accurate.
To be honest I was just looking for the fancy beans like the ones you hear about being eaten by elephants/bats/monkeys and pooped out to create a crazy good bean (probably hype only).
For you experts out there, does the above explanation ring true?
