Is it light or dark?

We at Flatlander are often asked a question that goes something like, "is this coffee dark?" or "is it strong?" The truth is, there are many, many ways to describe coffee character and that of its various roasts, from "French" to "bold" to "Full City" to "dark" and more, but what do these really mean? When one person says they like French Roast, how does that compare to the next person's idea of their favorite "bold" coffee? Here, hopefully, is something to clear up the confusion and explain why we prefer to describe our coffees by flavor rather than roast.

Mainly, we prefer this method of description because we know coffee is an incredibly complex brew. By the time a bean reaches your cup, it has undergone even more chemical changes than a grape during its transformation into wine. Besides this, a coffee's characteristics are influenced by factors all during its production. Elevation at the farm, processing method, age, local tradition, and geography are just a few elements that play a role in creating what you experience each morning in your favorite mug. Because it's so complex, we think coffees deserve more than just a one-word descriptor. That's why we take pains to cup and describe in detail each individual coffee we offer.

Don't worry, though. Just as knowing the roast gives you some idea where the coffee sits along a flavor continuum, so can descriptors of flavor if you only know a few key words. In general, coffee sits somewhere in between the clean, bright, and acidic descriptors typical of East African coffees and the earthy, lingering, heavy ones typical of Indonesian coffee.The former are often accompanied by words like "berryish", "fruity", "delicate", "sweet" or "floral", while the latter sometimes see adjectives like "tobaccoey", "spicy", or "smoky" attached to them. Of course, the truly great coffees of the world have all of these qualities stacked up on one another, and these are the ones we strive to search out for you at Flatlander.

But wait! If you're the kind of person who is still wondering just exactly what all that language surrounding roast means, here's something for you. The other reason we prefer to describe a coffee's flavor instead of its roast is that the roast descriptors have become terribly ambiguous over the years. The most commonly used language includes "bold", "light", "dark", and "strong". First, let's address the concept of a "bold" coffee. For most people, bold means darkly roasted. It is sometimes used to describe a coffee with a flavor that packs more of a punch, though. If you want a true feel for a coffee's characteristics, then, it's important to know which kind of "bold" you're dealing with. To further complicate this deceptively simple word, any coffee can be darkly roasted, but such a roast doesn't complement every coffee's inherent characteristics well. So it is possible to roast a coffee which is not "bold" in flavor with a "bold", or dark, roast. 

"Light" and "dark" are often used together to describe roast, and these, at least, are only used to describe the roast and not the coffee itself. Because of this, they're perhaps the most useful language to use when describing roast. They're helpful, too, because they at least invoke the idea of roasting as a continuum with many varying shades in between instead of something more like a train line from point A to point B with only designated stops in between. 

In contrast, "strong" is probably the least useful word for describing a coffee, because a coffee's strength is largely wrapped up in the brewing process. It's true that some coffees are more intense than others, but even these will be weak if the proportions of water to coffee are not right during brewing. On the other hand, any coffee brewed with too much coffee to water will be unpleasantly strong. Ideally, use 2 tablespoons fresh ground coffee for every 6 oz. cold filtered water to produce coffee that's just right for most people.

If you're sharp enough to have still been wondering about what all that language surrounding roast meant, you may now be wondering where all this confusion came from. Fortunately, Roast magazine has written a great article here called "Saying Coffee: the Naming Revolution" that covers specialty coffee's odd dance with language from its inception in the 70's to now. Check it out, and keep learning just how complex coffee can be!