How to Roast Espresso Coffee Beans - Espresso Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations - Italian Coffee Beans

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How to Determine Which Roast Level to Use for Espresso?

How light or dark can espresso beans be roasted while still achieving good espresso performance? And how can you utilize these different roasting styles to add distinctive features to your espresso bean retail business? Please read on to find out.

Starting with Bean Blending

When we talk about roasting espresso beans, we're actually discussing the art of bean blending. Different coffee beans from various producing countries each reach their optimal sweetness point at different roasting levels. Therefore, roasters must find a balance between roasting and blending to create a delicious espresso. This expertise begins with roast level and bean selection, along with the roaster's own palate sensitivity. Mastering these three key elements provides a great opportunity to produce espresso with balanced texture and pleasant flavor. Of course, there are many subjective taste preferences involved, but based on my years of experience, I can offer you some suggestions.

When using Northern Italian roast, the bean selection process is crucial. You must choose coffee beans with the lowest acidity at this roast level. For my personal Northern Italian blend, I selected the least acidic Brazilian beans from among ten varieties. However, if roasting deeper for a Central Italian blend, I probably wouldn't need to consider acidity levels much, as about 50% of Brazilian beans would meet this requirement. If using the deepest Southern Italian roast, then every Brazilian bean would be suitable. In general, Northern Italian blends must use milder-flavored, lower-acidity Arabica beans. The most classic blend is Mocha-Java, combining Yemen Mocha with Java Arabica beans. However, another popular and widely used alternative is Ethiopian Harar with Sumatran Mandheling.

Central Italian blends offer more flexibility in bean selection, but you might need to choose several beans with stronger characteristics, such as Ethiopian Harar. Many high-acidity beans like Costa Rican and Kenyan reach their optimal sweetness point at Central Italian roast levels.

Southern Italian roast is simply too dark, so you must use blends with very strong characteristics. Typically, rough and intense African beans are suitable for this purpose, such as Burundi or Harar. Personally, I believe when you reach such dark roast levels as French Roast, you have much greater flexibility in bean selection because most coffee bean characteristics have been roasted away at this point.

Northern Italian Roast

The relatively light-roasted Northern Italian roast (popular around the Milan area) produces espresso with a texture like sugar water. Personally, I believe this type of blend most perfectly combines sweetness with roasted nut flavors, but it's also the most prone to problems during extraction. Northern Italian blends have the most potential to produce full-bodied sweet espresso, but they're very easy to ruin during extraction. The thick, sweet dry aroma means the flavors are most complex and delicate at this stage, with relatively minimal carbonization. Through years of practical experience, I've found that Northern Italian blends have the most delicate aromatic compounds when exposed to hot water. If not operated properly during extraction, they can undergo a "Jekyll and Hyde transformation" - what should be sweet-smelling espresso might become overly acidic/bitter or astringent.

As a roasting retailer, when using these more delicate blends, you'll face challenges with consistency in cup performance during brewing. Due to the lack of roasted flavor background in Northern Italian blends, if your bar staff is slightly careless, the extracted espresso will have noticeable defects, which become even more apparent when mixed with milk. When professionally extracted and mixed with milk, the rich caramel flavor of the espresso is highlighted. For me, this caramel flavor represents the style and character that Northern Italian blends should exhibit.

Because Northern Italian blend beans undergo less carbonization, their caramel and origin flavor characteristics account for a higher proportion. Preserving these rich characteristics during brewing is a significant challenge, especially regarding water temperature stability. If brewing temperature fluctuates too much (exceeding four degrees Fahrenheit), the caramel flavor is the first to be sacrificed, followed by bland, light-colored crema flowing out. Under more stable brewing conditions (fluctuations below two degrees Fahrenheit), the crema will show an ochre-red color. However, having ochre-red crema doesn't guarantee that caramel flavors survive brewing. Even with very stable water temperatures, it's common to produce slightly acidic espresso, which might indicate low water temperature (at sea level, the ideal brewing temperature is 204°F, measured near the coffee puck). On my temperature-controlled machine at the shop, I've found that sweeter espressos have crema that dissipates more easily.

Northern Italian blends present many other challenges for professional brewing staff. For example, machines must be cleaned very thoroughly because Northern Italian blend beans particularly absorb off-flavors from espresso machines. If machine cleaning is insufficient, the extracted espresso will have an unpleasant bitter taste, somewhere between burnt toast and post-workout socks. Additionally, beans must be stored as whole beans and regularly rotated and mixed. Storing roasted coffee beans is like storing wine - they should be kept in sealed, opaque containers at around 55°F. For pure Arabica blends, beans should be used within 3-10 days of roasting when the espresso crema is at its most complete state. If the blend contains a high proportion of Robusta, the crema peak might last longer, but note that while Robusta beans can provide very thick crema, they contribute virtually nothing to sweetness. At Northern Italian roast levels, most Robusta beans exhibit astringency or woody flavors, while good Arabica beans express sweetness.

Bar staff must be highly skilled to correctly brew Northern Italian blends. Any errors during brewing or tamping that cause "channeling" effects will allow water to flow quickly through cracks, destroying sweet molecules and imbalancing aromatic compounds in the cup, ultimately leaving the entire espresso dominated by astringency. Additionally, bar staff must avoid letting espresso sit too long. Brewed espresso should be mixed with milk as quickly as possible. When making cappuccinos, espresso's sweet molecules are an important component in forming foam, but this component dissipates quickly. Ceramic cups must also be preheated to preserve espresso structure.

One key to achieving this enticing sweetness is flow rate. To manage this variable, baristas must carefully adjust grind settings. Too fast a flow will result in acidic and astringent taste, while too slow will produce burnt bitterness. Our shop targets 25-second extractions with a flow pattern resembling a "mouse tail."

Mastering Northern Italian espresso might take years of dedication, but if you succeed and your shop is located in a community where many customers appreciate this flavor profile, your business could outperform other roasted bean retailers in the area. However, if you plan to open any type of chain store, avoid choosing Northern Italian roast. The practice failures and experimentation attempts would be considerable. You'd be better off selecting darker roast blends that customers find more acceptable. Northern Italian blends are better suited for artisanal roasting retailers - talented coffee enthusiasts with great passion for coffee who will be fascinated by successfully brewed Northern Italian espresso. Once you master the essentials of brewing Northern Italian blends, you'll be nearly unmatched among your peers.

Central Italian Roast

When we roast darker, more sugars begin to carbonize or burn away - this is called Central Italian roast, typically popular around the Florence area. These blends produce slightly darker beans with flavor profiles leaning toward bitterness. However, this roast level isn't deep enough to burn away all origin flavor characteristics. Central Italian blends mainly represent another type of balance: the combination of bitterness, remaining sugars, and origin characteristics. Central Italian espresso typically has a subtle smoky aftertaste.

Central Italian blends can maintain stable performance even when extracted with relatively unstable water temperatures (most commercial espresso machines have temperature fluctuations exceeding six degrees Fahrenheit). This makes these blends most suitable for general roasting retailers and, of course, for skilled roasters to sell. The advantage of Central Italian blends is that even if bar staff are slightly careless and extract more espresso than standard, the coffee won't develop acidic, thin, or astringent defects - it will only lack some sweetness compared to Northern Italian blends (even carefully brewed Central Italian espresso won't be sweeter than carefully brewed Northern Italian espresso). Due to slightly higher carbonization levels in Central Italian blends, and because carbon itself is chemically stable, it doesn't matter what grade of machine is used to brew these blends or how careful the brewing process is - the cup will always contain bitterness from carbonization.

There's a reason why Italian coffee roast levels get progressively darker moving south. One theoretical hypothesis suggests that climate differences affect residents' spice usage and influence their taste preferences. Since ancient times, northern residents, with lower average temperatures, could preserve food and meat more easily. In contrast, southern weather is hotter, requiring residents to rely heavily on spices for food preservation. Many anthropologists believe this influences regional taste preferences and explains why southerners prefer more concentrated foods and beverages. Applied to coffee, this theory explains why southern Italian coffee has stronger bitterness. Of course, these are just theories that may not apply well in America's diverse society. However, if your customer base primarily consists of people from southern backgrounds, you might find they prefer darker roasted coffee.

Southern Italian Roast

Southern Italian roast is the darkest roasting stage for espresso beans. In these espressos, bitterness/carbon flavors dominate, overwhelming most sweetness and origin characteristics. Naples in southern Italy represents this region, where you can find the world's darkest roasted espressos, retaining only minimal sweetness and origin characteristics. If you roast any darker, you'd be left with mostly carbon and bitterness. Due to the strong bitterness of these espressos, they mask most sweetness, but the flavor persistence is highest, increasing brewing fault tolerance. With standardized training and equipment, plus a professional bar trainer, these espressos can be mastered. Southern Italian roasted beans are very suitable for small espresso bars or small-scale chain coffee shops - any commercial-grade machine can produce consistently strong espresso.

When I visited Naples, I tasted their espresso firsthand. I noticed the baristas always placed freshly extracted half-ounce espressos (still in cups) in hot water to preserve them. Italians there add a pinch of sugar, stir quickly, and drink it down. I reached a conclusion: Southern Italian roasted espresso probably requires very short extraction (ristretto) because there's less sugar in the beans, plus the long-standing tradition is to extract smaller doses to balance sugar and bitterness in the cup. Many believe this roasting method, combined with Naples' brewing style, is the world's most perfect combination, but this pairing might not become popular in America because Americans prefer large, non-bitter coffee!

Espresso Coffee Bean Brand Recommendations

Located at Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee roasting brand whose fresh-roasted espresso beans guarantee both brand recognition and quality. More importantly, they offer excellent value. Take their commercial blend recommendation as an example: one 454-gram (1-pound) bag costs only about 60 RMB. Calculated at 10 grams per espresso shot, one bag can make 45 cups of coffee, with each cup costing less than 1.5 RMB. Even using double shots at 20 grams each, a double espresso costs no more than 3 RMB. Compared to certain well-known brands that sell bags for hundreds of RMB, this is truly a conscientious recommendation.

FrontStreet Coffee: A Guangzhou roasting shop with a small storefront but diverse bean varieties, where you can find both famous and lesser-known beans. They also provide online store services at https://shop104210103.taobao.com

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473