Posts tagged with "Roasting"

How We Choose Our Coffees

Folks who make coffee their profession understand – there are many steps to a great cup. It starts with green beans, and involves roasting, brewing and serving. The green beans alone require a certain depth of knowledge, including genetics, growing regions, processing techniques, sorting, and shipping. Let’s take a look at how we choose our coffees.

Some of the criteria we use to purchase green coffees are cup quality, seasonal growing cycle, price, and availability. Since we began roasting in 1982, we’ve looked the world over for the best beans each producing country offers. We’ve always maintained a large variety of types from the majority of coffee growers.

It’s important to represent many specialty coffees. When you are asked what the best coffee is, the answer is not set in stone, but comes when you’re able to choose from among the many terrific growths available at any given time.

Each roaster uses various, personalized criteria to buy and evaluate their green purchases. At Coffee Express, we use a number of trusted importers, based on both the east and west coast. We look for a combination of coffees we need, and those that are available for a limited time.

Cup quality is never always 10, on a scale of 1-10. After all, if everything were a 10, you wouldn’t need a scale! So, you try to shoot for that elusive 10 at all times, but you choose from what’s available. I believe everyone has a slightly different bar, and we’ve kept ours very high for going on thirty years. We reject coffee below that bar, no matter how much it’s needed.

Today, our process for choosing coffees has led to nearly three decades of – we hope – some of the best tasting coffee you can find.

We hope you enjoy drinking our coffee as much as we enjoy roasting it for you!

Degrees of Roast

A word on degrees of roasting. The popularity of coffee houses brought with it a taste toward dark roasts. Prior to the 1990s, the preference for dark roast was limited. Espresso brewing changed that, and the Starbucks Phenomenon has popularized even darker roasts.

The success of coffee houses, with their espresso-based drinks, is widespread today. Every city and town sports double and triple the number of shops than even a few years ago. There is a trend, dubbed “third wave”, that is elevating the making and serving of espressos, macchiatos, cappuccinos, and lattes. Whether it involves exacting specs for the coffee blend and roast, having a barista trained in latte art, or the perfectly pulled shot, the strive for excellence at coffee houses is on the rise.

We are seeing a move, however small, to lighter espresso roasts often called “Northern Italian Style”. Probably our best selling coffee is our French Roast, which has always been a “medium dark roast”. There is also a renewed interest in the variety of medium roast coffees used for drip brewing.

We at Coffee Express encourage coffee operations of all types to experiment, educate, and continue in your mission to become THE spot known all around for serving the finest beverages and food items. Use Coffee Express Co. as an important tool as you continue to gather information about trends and techniques that can help you create a better shop. We are at your service.