Coffee Bean Roasting Levels: A Comprehensive Guide to 8 Roast Degrees and Flavor Differences

Nowadays, many coffee enthusiasts not only enjoy drinking coffee but also develop an interest in coffee roasting. While browsing online, FrontStreet Coffee often sees people sharing their home coffee bean roasting processes on social media. However, we also notice that some people end up with unevenly roasted coffee beans, some light-colored and some dark-colored.

The roasting level and uniformity of coffee beans determine the flavor expression of the coffee. Understanding the impact of roasting on coffee beans is therefore crucial. Before explaining the roasting levels corresponding to coffee bean colors, FrontStreet Coffee would like to briefly share how to roast coffee beans at home.

Home Coffee Roasting Methods

Currently, there are many unusual home coffee roasting methods online, such as pan roasting, oven roasting, and air fryer roasting. With these tools, however, we cannot ensure that coffee beans are constantly rolling and heated evenly. FrontStreet Coffee therefore recommends purchasing a drum-shaped coffee bean roasting net.

When using a drum to roast coffee beans, based on the personal experience of FrontStreet Coffee's baristas, there are two important points to note: use low heat for roasting, otherwise the coffee beans will easily change color on the outside while remaining uncooked inside; after turning on the heat and adjusting the flame size, place the drum and immediately start rotating at 60-65 revolutions per minute. Using a drum for roasting takes more than double the time compared to a dedicated roasting machine. For example, FrontStreet Coffee uses a Yangjia 800N roaster to roast Red Bourbon coffee beans from the Cerrado region of Brazil, with a first crack to discharge time of 3:30 minutes for a medium-dark roast, and a total roasting time of 13 minutes.

This is Brazilian Cerrado coffee bean roasted by FrontStreet Coffee using professional equipment.

However, using a drum roaster to achieve a similar roast level requires a total roasting time of 31 minutes. During this time, you must constantly rotate the drum (60 revolutions per minute), and if you stop or slow down, the beans can easily burn... It is quite labor-intensive.

This is the same coffee bean roasted at home by FrontStreet Coffee's barista using a drum roaster.

Although home coffee bean roasting is tiring, it allows you to clearly and intuitively experience the coffee beans gradually turning from green raw beans to yellow, emitting sweet corn-like aromas, then slowly turning to cinnamon color with caramel scents, and finally to chocolate brown with roasted nut flavors.

This process is incredibly therapeutic and helps you understand that to roast delicious coffee beans, you need to understand the beans themselves and learn how the roasting process affects their flavor, which makes you appreciate every cup of coffee even more.

Coffee Roast Levels and Colors

If we simply classify commercially available coffee beans, they generally fall into: sour for light roast, bitter for dark roast, and both sour and bitter for medium roast. The world's most authoritative specialty coffee association—SCAA—provides a coffee roast level color chart that divides coffee roast levels into 8 types:

The lightest Agtron color value is 95, called Light Roast, with discharge time approximately during the first crack (when the beans are still crackling), generally expressing bright acidity in the coffee flavor.

Left is medium-light roast, right is medium-dark roast.

Agtron color value 85 belongs to Cinnamon Roast, with discharge time around the end of the first crack (when the cracking sound has just stopped, or only occasional crackles remain). Coffee beans at this level generally express acidity as the main flavor, with a sweet sensation.

Agtron color value 75 is called Medium Roast, with discharge time approximately after the first crack ends (when cracking sounds have completely stopped). Coffee flavor at this level will be predominantly sweet with slight fruit acidity.

Agtron color value 65 is called High Roast, with discharge time approximately after the first crack ends and before the second crack begins (about 1-2 minutes of quiet period). The flavor expresses nutty caramel tones, balanced, without acidity.

Agtron color value 55 is called City Roast, with discharge time approximately when the second crack begins (after a period of silence, one or two weak cracking sounds appear). The flavor expression is more bitter with heavier caramel aroma.

Agtron color value 45 is called Full City Roast, with discharge time approximately before the second crack becomes intense (before hearing crackling sounds). At this point, the coffee is already very dark, with a more intense burnt, bitter, and aromatic flavor.

Agtron color value 35 is called French Roast, with discharge time approximately during the intense second crack (hearing crackling sounds again, but deeper than the first time). At this point, the coffee beans have started to exude oil.

Agtron color value 25 is called Italian Roast, with discharge time approximately at the end of the second crack (after the intense sounds). At this time, the coffee beans are jet black and shiny, with oils having permeated the bean surface.

Roasting Tips from FrontStreet Coffee

According to FrontStreet Coffee's observations, whether using machine roasting or home roasting, coffee beans are generally not roasted to levels beyond color value 65, because when coffee reaches dark roast levels, the flavor it expresses becomes very rich and intense with limited flavor complexity.

For those without sufficient understanding of drum roasting, we don't recommend roasting too lightly, as it is easy to have the bean surface reach your desired color while the inside remains under-roasted due to poor heat control, leading to grassy or green flavors in your coffee.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If this guide has you thinking about medium roasts specifically, FrontStreet Coffee's medium-roast lineup is a good place to start. The FrontStreet Coffee Brazil Queen Estate Coffee, a rare Yellow Bourbon from Brazil grown at Mogiana, is roasted medium to bring out creamy peanut, chocolate, toasted bread, and sugarcane sweetness with a clean, gentle body. For a sweeter, fruit-forward medium roast, the FrontStreet Coffee Strawberry Candy Blend combines Costa Rican honey-processed coffee with Panama washed Geisha, showing orange-blossom honey and rounded sweetness that works equally well for cold brew, pour-over, or espresso. And for a balanced, all-day cup, the FrontStreet Coffee 2013 Natural Typica from Yunnan presents roasted nut, brown sugar, black tea, and dried apricot notes—exactly the "both sour and bitter, in balance" character that defines the medium roast at Agtron 75.