Most of us love sitting down in the morning to enjoy a nice cup of coffee, we may even need it to start our day to provide the energy we need to get us through. There are many different varieties of coffee bean roasts that we can choose from.  Everyone has different preferences on what coffee tastes better and or gets the job done to get us motivated.

Different Types of Coffee Roasts

Many daily coffee drinkers may miss that different coffee beans bring a different flavor to their taste buds. If you are a coffee drinker, trying out new coffee roasts can bring excitement to your daily routine. The flavor of your coffee beans can vary due to where they come from as well as how the roasting method of the beans is performed.

Light Roast

The color of these coffee beans is right in their name, light. The color of the light roast coffee beans appears to be a light brown color along with a light body. These beans have no oil applied to their surface.

Light roast coffee beans are cooked for a shorter amount of time and at a lower temperature resulting in the beans turning out dense due to more moisture left inside the bean. Light roast coffee includes more caffeine so if you are one of the hundreds that need their coffee to get that morning kick you may want to turn to light roast coffee.

Medium Roast

The medium roast coffee beans appear as a medium brown color, a bit darker than your light roast. These beans have no oil applied on their surface, if they do it is a rare situation. The medium roast beans will have a thicker body than the light roast coffee beans.

These beans bring more of a balanced flavor to your coffee along with a richer taste and acidity than other roasts. You may have heard of medium roast coffee also going by the names “American roast” or “Regular”. This coffee is most likely what you will get if you are ordering a coffee at your local diner.

Dark Roast

The dark roast coffee beans are dark brown to black with a heavy, richer, and fuller body compared to the light and medium roast blends. These beans are made with an oily surface, unlike the other roasts.

The dark roast coffee beans are cooked at higher temperatures, they are also roasted for a longer amount of time than the other roasts. The high temperature and cooking time results in the beans losing their moisture and becoming less dense, this leaves the dark roast to have a more bitter taste. Dark roast coffee is known to include less caffeine than other roasts.

Extra Dark Roast

The extra dark roast coffee beans appear to be more black than brown, high amounts of oil are applied to the surface of these beans. They are cooked at even higher temperatures than your average dark roast coffee, this results in a bitter, rich, and smoky taste to your coffee.

You may have heard extra dark roast coffee to be named French roast coffee as well. Extra dark roast coffee is known to have low amounts of caffeine compared to the other roasts.

Check out different roasts and the flavors they offer, and find the perfect roast type for you!