Putting aside the merits of the 100 point scale, not getting hung up on semantics if you were offered both of these coffees (to drink) – which would you choose?
Which would you choose?
- 80 point coffee with a 90 point roast (68%, 42 Votes)
- 90 point coffee with an 80 point roast (32%, 20 Votes)
Total Voters: 62
Loading ...
I don’t understand the question.
I know what a 90 point coffee is, and an 80 point coffee.
What is an 80 or 90 “point roast?” I’ve never heard of such a thing, and don’t know that it exists.
You are being offered a simple choice Nick. On one hand an excellent coffee that is roasted rather averagely, and on the other an average coffee that has been roasted really well.
The 80/90 point roast is an entirely hypothetical consideration, one that I have the utmost confidence that you can grasp.
but i would take an 85 point coffee with a 90 roast over a 90 coffee with an 85 roast.
I honestly can’t decide between the two, probably because I currently don’t know enough about roasting or sourcing beans to know how a 10% quality hit (or bump) would be reflected in the cup.
I am increasing coming around to the idea that I’d rather have a lower quality coffee that is properly extracted than a higher quality coffee that isn’t, though.
In my very humble experience with roasting, I would say that I have tasted enough of one lot of coffee over a period of roasting it to come to the conclusion that one roast can be “on” and one can be “off”
I don’t know that we as an industry have found a way of scoring this, roast profiling seems necessary for consistencies sake, though I think it depends so much on the coffee. for a one score sheet system (cupping score style) I think would be difficult but plausible.
the only way I’ve really compared production level roast profiles is with a cupping score sheet, and that seems to showcase the differences.
Of course a roast profile doesn’t show all the parameters in the roasting process, but neither does a particular paragraph explaining the V60.
10 points on that spectrum is huge!! between 80 and 90. Wow!
based on my experience of tasting many poorly roasted coffees, and few very well roasted coffees, I’m biased to the 80 point coffee and the 90 point roast.
I don’t think anything would dissapoint me more than a good coffee averagely/poorly roasted. I would far prefer to know the roaster has done their best and got the most out of an average bean.
90 point roast
I would agree with The Gentle Giant. I think a properly brewed poorly roasted coffee would still be worse than a poorly brewed properly roasted one.
Not so much talking about brewing here though. Moreso green quality & roast quality…
You can’t “enhance” a coffee more than it’s pre-roasted (and brewed) potential. BUT you can try and bring out its potential as much as possible through storage, roasting, brewing, blah blah blah.
No question. You wouldn’t drink a 90 point espresso pulled badly now would you?
There seems to be more agreement around the world as to what a good green coffee is than to what makes a good roast profile. Which should imply that the “quality” of the green coffee means more than the “quality” of the roast profile.
damn, that’s good logic… but I’m still not sure I agree
Good point Rasamatazmus.
Who’s scoring the roast? (I think we should let Rasmus score it or he’ll never answer the damn question)
i have to say i would take an average coffee well roasted. when you can tell the work has been put in at the roastery it makes a more enjoyable cup. the roaster has worked hard to bring out the best in the bean given what he has to work with, rather thatn sitting back and not putting as much work in and letting the green quality carry the end product
Who’s scoring the roasts? We have to remember, 80 isn’t a horrible roast. It’s most likely someone else’s preference.
Do I find my roast preference superior to every other roast style in the world? We certainly do things differently in Norway, and I feel pretty good about the reasoning behind the choices we’ve made. Still, it seems strange to assert that everyone else is wrong. I’m sure they have their reasons as well.
Would I like to try Esmeralda from TCC or a Nekisse from an american roaster? Most certainly. That or a cup of standard SH colombia? I’m surprised the poll turned out the way it did.
who’s scoring the coffee? 80 isn’t a horrible roast, but 80 is also isn’t a horrible coffee.
Some people really enjoy Sumatran coffees and that’s great! Just not my taste. That’s not even getting into the washed vs. naturals debate.
Roast style to me is the darkness of a roast, which if that is what is meant, is entirely different than a roast profile, which entails roast length and temperature curve.
A 7 minute roast is significantly different than a 15 minute roast.
I’m not saying anyone is right or wrong either, I’m saying that the information isn’t out there or communicated from roasters to customers.
I think it’s easy to say hey I paid 11.63/lbs. for this Nekisse, it’s awesome green, you’ll love it more than any coffee!
Rather to try and communicate to a customer how much time and energy was spent in the creation of the perfect roast profile for that SH Colombia, and how much value that adds to it per lbs. or kg.
Maybe the poll turned out the way it did because people are looking more for what makes a roast 80 or 90 than what makes a coffee 80 or 90.
As you said – an 80 or 90 coffee can be fairly well quanitified around the world, so we’re confident (maybe a little cocky) that we could spot the good coffee.
But roasting – there are so many different styles and rationales behind decisions that get made that it’s harder to quantify with a score – I would rather taste the 90 roast because I would love to know what you think a 90 roast *is*. I can get hold of the 80 coffee you used and roast it for myself – I may agree or disagree with you, but I would at least have a quanitifiable starting point to the discussion.
I’d rather have an average coffee that someone has really tried to bring the extra flavours etc through a quality roast, than a quality coffee that’s been averagely roasted. I think I’d feel dissapointed that a quality coffee has been ‘wasted’ so to speak, by an average roast.
[...] boundaries of hypothetical coffee pondering. The fact is that I was genuinely inspired by a recent quick question posed by another coffee blogger which asked whether you would prefer a higher quality roast of a [...]