I wish I could find the word that describes the lighter roast taste that I don't like (to me, it's the IPA of coffee) because I have yet to be able to walk into a coffee roaster and ask them, "Is your coffee <term of art>?" so I know not to even bother.
As an experiment, try Starbucks Kenya. It’s one of the most aggressively citrus-y among the coffees they serve — that sharp flavor even survives the darkish Starbucks “medium” roast.
Starbucks and Peet’s and Red Bay and Equator are all good for me. When I was in Europe I didn’t have a single bad espresso. Here I dislike many of them and stick to espressos from classic roast establishments. I wish it was easier to feed my occasional espresso kick.
You might experiment with the same bean and different grind settings to see if that helps with the taste you don’t like. Though age of the beans messes with this too which is maddening. Generally speaking though lighter roasts are more fiddly to brew so get messed up more frequently.
that is always a possibility.
It why you want to have a pro brew up the best cup that is possible from those light roast beans, and test out the flavour.
If you're a self taught brewer, you might find that you've made mistakes, and also mistakenly took those mistakes as the flavour of the bean, thus incorrectly dislike it.
There are two kind of "sourness" in coffee, one is of acidity, which is a (for some highly desirable) feature of the beans, which can be toned down with darker roasting levels. The other is astringency (tea-like) which is a sign of extraction defect and generally not liked by all. This can be controlled with grind settings.
Anything that could be called “woodsy” or “grassy”, or possibly “green” depending on what you mean by that is a roast defect. Either under roasted, or not roasted properly. I roast coffee that is frequently on the very end of light roasts and it should never have those flavors.
Floral is a flavor note that some coffees have especially at the lighter end, but not all of them.
me: :(
Kirby64: ”What?”
My point is that taste is not that subjective, but taste preference may be subjective. If you're a coffee roasting professional, you would attempt to get rid of such flavors since you're not getting the most out of the coffee.
For what it’s worth, I worked as a barista for a spell a long time ago and blind testing is a hobby of mine; I’ve done lots of dueling press pots experimenting with different varieties and brewing techniques. I also have a hobby of trying out new eateries and cafes. I’m a hobbyist, who loves coffee — but this love has been nurtured mostly outside of professional circles.
You're conveying meaning with your vocabulary even if you don't mean to. If you don't have the proper words to describe it, that's fine. Like I said, some people even enjoy particular defects in coffee. For instance, growing defects known as 'quakers' have a particular peanuty taste. It's considered undesirable, but some people might like that.
As to your general idea of conveying that light roasts all taste a certain way, I don't think I can agree to that notion. There's such a wide variety of flavors you can cultivate depending on the origin, roasting style, and processing method that you can't really make that generalization.
One thing I will say: many coffees that are advertised as 'light roast', especially in the non-specialty markets, tend to have one or more of the following problems: 1) underroasted (which leads to grassy/green flavors), 2) not actually roasted to 'light' (maybe more medium), 3) poor temperature control, as a result of trying to roast light (leading to 'baked' flavoring), 4) poor coffee selection for a lighter roast, leading to much more green/grassy flavoring as a result.
If you haven’t given that or a caramel macchiato a try, I’d highly recommend it. You might be surprised. I was.
say what you like about coffee - it's disgusting, bitter, horrible tasting stuff.
but chocolate ? I shall beat thee as fine as the dust of the earth, I shall stamp thee as the mire of the street, and cast thee abroad.
And so is chocolate, unless you put an absurd amount of sugar in it.
I drink my coffee black, though, no milk or sugar. When I've got a good bean and I prepared it just right, it reminds me of unsweetened chocolate, in a good way.
After all, coffee and chocolate both originate with the roasted seeds of a fruit.
I used to be the same way. Although I liked the smell of coffee, I absolutely hated the taste. Then I met my wife, who would make a pot of coffee (and not "brown water" either) at 8PM and I guess I just got used to it. Now it's an everyday thing.
liking the "brown" chocolatey/caramelly flavour isn't lowbrow - you found a flavour you enjoy and it is valid.
The idea that only those people who enjoy the light floral type are "true" coffee enjoyers (and everything else low brow - including sugar laden lattes) needs to stop.
The specialty dark roast will have notes of cookies, chocolate, nuts. Lots of brown roasty flavour.
Starbucks tastes bitter. With very little nuance. (Unless you cold brew it, then you can leave most of the bitter behind)
Not everyone is going to like less-roasted beans. Less roasted beans have strong, distinct flavors which might be characterized as "green" or "floral" or "woodsy", and it's true that a lot of the individuality of the bean varieties is obscured by darker roasts. But I for one usually prefer the standard roasts of the mainstream vendors over the light roasts you can seek out at smaller boutique vendors.