The 10 Types of Coffee Roasts and What They Mean

We’ve been going into tons of details here on our blog about the seemingly infinite levels of intricacies that go into making the best cup of coffee you’ve ever had. There are tons of different coffee beans, each bean being grown in varying climates and elevations which produce different flavors, and it is also influenced by how it is processed. You can have a variety of coffee beans, each providing a different flavor profile, and the water used and the water extraction also influence the coffee output.

But, what we haven’t elaborated on yet, is all of the different ways to roast a bean, and what that ultimately means for your coffee. There are 5 “levels” of roasts, starting with unroasted, and moving it’s way towards more and more roasted. We’ll list the name of the roast, the roast classification, and the temperatures used to cause that roast.

What is the Coffee Roasting Process?

Coffee roasting begins after it is cleaned/processed, but is separate from brewing it.
Generally, coffee beans are grown and processed on a farm, then sent to a roaster, and the roaster then sends it either directly to the consumer, or to a business that will sell it to the consumer.

When the green coffee beans first arrive at a roaster, then they are generally dumped into a hopper where they are screened and have the debris and other junk separated.

In large scale operations, they are…