Coffee Bean Roast Level Classification - Italian Roast Coffee Characteristics? How to Brew Italian Roast Beans?

Coffee Bean Roast Levels: Italian Roast Characteristics and Brewing Methods

Coffee roasting is typically divided into the following eight stages:

Light Roast: The Lightest Level

The lightest of all roasting stages. The beans show a pale cinnamon color, with insufficient flavor and aroma. This state is barely drinkable and is generally used for testing rather than tasting.

Cinnamon Roast: Light Level

A common roast with a cinnamon appearance. The grassy smell has been eliminated, the aroma is acceptable, and the acidity is strong. It is often used for American-style coffee.

Medium Roast: Medium Level

Medium roast heat, similar to light roast, belongs to the American-style range. Besides acidity, bitterness begins to appear, creating a pleasant mouthfeel. With balanced aroma, acidity, and body, it is commonly used for blended coffee.

High Roast: Medium-Dark Level

A medium-dark roast, slightly stronger than medium, with some dark tea color appearing on the surface and bitterness becoming more pronounced. The flavor is bitter with acidic notes, and both aroma and taste are excellent. It is most popular among Japanese and Central European coffee lovers -- Blue Mountain Coffee being the classic example.

City Roast: Medium-Dark Level

The most standard roast level, where bitterness and acidity reach balance. It is often used for French-style coffee, such as Brazilian and Colombian beans.

Full City Roast: Dark Level

Slightly stronger than City Roast, with quite a dark color, where bitterness exceeds acidity. This belongs to the Central and South American roasting approach and is extremely suitable for making various iced coffees.

French Roast: Dark Level

Also known as French or European roast, belonging to the dark category. The color shows dark tea with black tones, and acidity is no longer perceptible. It is especially popular in Europe, and in France above all. With fats drawn to the surface, it carries a distinctive aroma and is very suitable for cafe au lait and Vienna coffee.

Italian Roast: The Darkest Level

Also called Italian roast, taken to the point just before carbonization, with a smoky flavor. It is mainly popular in Latin countries and suits quick coffee and cappuccino. It is mostly used for Espresso series coffees.

French Roast, Continued

French roast originates from New Orleans, where roasters often use pans to roast beans because the resulting coffee flavor is at its most complete and intense.

French Roast is Cafe Altura's heaviest roast level, using the finest Arabica variety beans, with green beans sourced from the Sierra Madre mountains of Chiapas, Mexico.

Although it is the heaviest roast, there is not a hint of unpleasant bitterness. The beans present a very rich dark brown color with shimmering natural oils. We roast carefully to avoid the burnt taste and bitterness that over-roasting causes. The taste is richly layered and without acidity. The sweetness lingers in the throat when the coffee goes down, then the whole mouth fills with a rich milky aroma that extends to the nasal cavity. As the cold season approaches, a cup of Cafe Altura French Roast brings a sense of calm and steadiness.

Look closely and you can see that the foam comes from the coffee's own oil. This oil is the result of green beans being roasted at high temperature until the second crack becomes dense. Usually, such beans are removed from the heat for cooling with a deep color but no oil yet on the surface. Because the beans continue to release heat, oil gradually appears on the surface bit by bit after cooling. Beans like this disperse aroma strongly, with a rich, powerful fragrance that is hard to resist. Only a heavy roast can force out the coffee oil, but correspondingly, freshness and shelf life are shortened.

The optimal tasting window for espresso beans is about five to seven days after roasting. Past the seventh day, or up to ten days, the oil quality gradually changes and an unpleasant greasy smell begins to appear. At that point, extracting on an espresso machine at nine bars of pressure will fill 80% of the cup with foam. Drunk straight, the taste is unforgettable. Add brown sugar to round out the flavor and it becomes another experience entirely. It is recommended to drink more water alongside this coffee to dilute the extract in your stomach, and not to drink it on an empty stomach.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommended Brewing

Pour-over or espresso

Pour-Over Brewing Parameters

Water temperature 83-88°C, water-to-coffee ratio 1:13-14, Fuji grinder setting 4, Kono filter cup. First pour 30g of water for a 28-30s bloom.

Depending on the bloom and how much it expands, decide how long to pour with a fine stream. After blooming, the grounds will still hold some air. During the second pour, foam will appear. How fine the foam is reflects how much air is left in the bed, and that air determines whether the grounds float on the surface or settle to the bottom of the filter. More air means the grounds float, so use a fine, gentle stream to disturb them and release the trapped air.

Pour until you reach 110g, stop at 140g, then wait until the water level in the bed drops to half and continue pouring slowly until you reach 238g. Avoid the last 5g. Extraction time: 2:00 minutes.

This pour-over method yields higher sweetness and a gentler flavor. It is for reference only; adjust to your preferred taste.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If the roast-level discussion above leaves you curious about how a classic medium-dark roast tastes, Jamaican Blue Mountain is the traditional reference point -- the High Roast level has long been associated with it. FrontStreet's Jamaica Blue Mountain No. 1 is that origin at its top grade. Strictly speaking, only coffee grown in a defined part of Jamaica's Blue Mountains and officially certified can be sold as Blue Mountain Coffee, and the region produces less than 2,500 tons a year, with Japan historically buying more than 70% of it.

FrontStreet's lot comes from the Clifton Farm, which has been growing and processing coffee since around the mid-18th century, at an average elevation of 4,300 feet (1,310.64 meters). It is roasted to a medium-dark level -- the profile that best shows Blue Mountain's balance: neither the sharp fruit acidity of some African coffees nor the heavy bitterness of a deep roast, but a harmonious blend of acidity, sweetness, bitterness, and aroma, with cream, caramel, chocolate, nut, honey, and a light fruit note that opens gradually.

Because a medium-dark roast is a little denser than a light one, FrontStreet suggests grinding slightly coarser -- about the texture of white sugar -- and brewing a single serving of 15g in a KONO dripper, which emphasizes body. Use 87-88°C water and a 1:15 ratio, and pour in three stages: 30g to bloom for 30 seconds, up to 120g, then up to 225g with a slightly quicker, wider circle so the bed does not clog and over-extract.