Roasted coffee vs. green coffee
Roasted coffee versus green coffee? When I initially started roasting my coffee beans at home, I must admit that I found the entire process to be, to put it mildly, scary. When it comes to specialized tools, different types of coffee, and roast intensities, it’s enough to make your head spin.
But as a seasoned roaster, I’ve come to understand that simplifying the process as much as you can is the best strategy for understanding it. What are the differences between green coffee and roasted coffee, to begin with?
Unroasted coffee beans are known as green beans. While light to dark brown coffee beans have been roasted, green coffee beans have not. Although green beans can be used to produce coffee, the taste is inferior to that of coffee prepared with roasted beans and is acidic, woody, and disagreeable.
Although you usually wouldn’t use green coffee beans to make a cup of coffee, the quality of the green beans does important. You must understand what happens to your beans during roasting and what makes a great unroasted bean if you want to start roasting coffee at home. Read on if you’re interested!
What Sets Green Coffee Apart from Roasted Coffee?
Nearly a miraculous process, roasting. In their unprocessed form, coffee beans aren’t especially appetizing. They are difficult to chew and are rough, abrasive, acidic, and generally unpleasant. However, when raw coffee is roasted, chemical reactions take place inside the beans, bringing previously hidden flavors to the surface.
Caramelization is the result of the intrinsic sugars in coffee beans starting to oxidize when heated. The sweet and nutty flavors that are typically associated with a good cup of coffee are enhanced by caramelization. Additionally, it is in charge of giving roasted coffee beans their dark brown hue. Caramelization, however, is not the only process that takes place while roasting.
Because coffee contains a lot of acid, green coffee beans taste harsh and acidic. Roasting coffee beans causes their acidity to start to balance out and mellow, giving them a much more palatable flavor.
The longer they are roasted, the more acid is extracted from the beans and the more caramelization takes place.
You could think that the objective is to reduce acidity to the absolute minimum, but wait! Even hazardous acids can be discovered in coffee beans. A mix of acids is what gives raw coffee beans their rich, floral, and fruity aromas. On the other side, caramelization offers your beans a rich, full-bodied flavor, but too much of it can produce a burnt, bitter taste.
It makes it easier for me to picture roasting as a process of finding the perfect harmony between the flavors produced during roasting and the natural flavors of the coffee bean. The “correct” balance is inherently a matter of taste, but that’s part of what makes roasting so much fun!
Major differences between green coffee and roasted coffee
Tips for Choosing the Best Green Beans
To produce high-quality roasted beans, more than just throwing any old raw bean into the roaster is required. It’s crucial to keep in mind that quality cannot be boiled into beans.
Start with the best unroasted beans you can get if you want to produce coffee that is great. How can you determine if a coffee bean is of excellent quality?
Uniformity
The first quality to check while purchasing green coffee is uniformity. Unexpected flavors might develop from beans that roast unevenly due to their different diameters. Smaller beans burn faster than larger ones, which could ruin your coffee!
Age
In ideal circumstances, raw coffee can be kept for up to 18 months. Beyond that, green beans soon lose their flavor. When searching for green coffee beans, never forget to check the harvest date. Unless you like stale coffee, don’t waste your time if it has been more than 18 months.
On the bag of green beans, there is typically information describing how the beans were treated after harvest. The terminology may be unclear, yet this information is essential for predicting the flavor of the beans. Here are a few frequently used expressions along with their definitions:
Dry Processing: This traditional method involves drying the coffee beans inside the fruit of the coffee plant in the sun. The flavor of these beans is deliciously chocolatey with a hint of fermentation. They respond best to more light roasting techniques in order to maintain the delicate fruity smells.
The most common way to process coffee beans is to wash them. The coffee bean is taken from the fruit after processing and quickly transferred to a holding tank to remove any pulp that may have remained. Beans that have been washed taste acidic, light, and fresh. If you want a more consistent, reliable coffee flavor, use washed beans.
Single Source: This coffee comes from a single origin, as you might imagine. This means that regardless of the location or setting, you can anticipate a consistent flavor. The more detailed the label, the better. If you can identify the precise location of the farm where the beans were collected, you’ll be able to anticipate the flavor of the coffee with great accuracy.
I regularly get asked, “How do you know which unroasted coffee is right for you?” Choosing your ideal coffee need not be frightening, despite the fact that there are many options available. Think about the flavors you want in your roasted beans. Once you’ve narrowed down the answer, finding raw beans that match that flavor profile is as simple as reading the bag descriptions. High-quality raw coffee beans frequently have flavor descriptions.
