“Beyond your personal preference or culture, consuming dark roast coffee today, makes as much sense as eating burnt toasts or letting your BBQ steak to scorch. So why do we still do it?”
If you were old enough to have started drinking coffee before the 90’s, I am sure you would remember back then, there was no Specialty coffee, and no one even venture to talk about coffee quality nor profile. Coffee despite origin, was only commercial grade and no one invested much thought about it.
Regardless how you want to call it nowadays “First wave”, “second”, “third” or whatever, the reality is, high quality coffee is a relatively new phenomenon, not older than 30 years old to be more exact.
Commercial grade however, has always been the industry standard, characterized for quality issues and off flavors, dealing with these problems have always been challenging for roasters and coffee shops alike, who have managed to make these coffees appealing to consumers throughout history by roasting dark and adopting blending techniques.
SEE ALSO: How we solved the global coffee price crisis
To understand it better, we need to look back in time.
In 1940, WWII was rising tensions worldwide and the American government feared Latin American countries could join Nazi’s or communist ideologies. To make sure these nations stayed on their side, the US government helped coffee producing countries to create a coffee cartel, where Washington DC would assign quotas to each producing country and they will get in return an equivalent and equitable share of the US coffee market.
The official name for this endeavor was the Inter-American Coffee Agreement (IACA), it initially only included Latin-American countries and it was restricted to the US coffee market alone.
Immediately after it took effect, coffee price doubled and steadily increased until 1957. The war also helped by triggering US coffee consumption, reaching the maximum per capita ever in 1946 with outstanding 46.4 gallons per person/year (compare to 20 gallon per person/year today).
The Inter-American coffee agreement was followed by the International Coffee Agreement (ICA) in 1964 that expanded to coffee producing countries all over the world and broadened markets to European and Asians as well.
Like its predecessor, the International Coffee Agreement was a success, offering steady coffee prices to producers globally until it ended in 1989.
The honeymoon was over
Once the ICA was over all producing countries instead of being partners and cooperate with one another, became direct competitors for the same markets. This new free market created unprecedented challenges for producing countries, especially for those that couldn’t compete with low cost of production, yield and scale of a powerhouse like Brazil, which years later unleashed its producing potential doubling total production and crushing market price by the beginning of the century.
Specialty coffee market was born
The first producing country to notice the unfair competition was Colombia, having no many options left, it decided to compete with Brazil global coffee supremacy by offering a differentiated product, that consisted of handpicked coffee, processed by higher standards, aimed to satisfy a quality-oriented consumer.
During the time of Ema Knutsen and other early American Specialty Coffee pioneers, coffee quality was accidental and coffee professionals needed to asses hundreds of commercial coffee samples to find a handful that were considered special. No wonder it was called “Specialty Coffee”.
Although the term “Specialty Coffee” was already known back then and used by a few people in the US, Colombia was the first country to export “Specialty” grade coffee by the beginning of the century. For the first time in history quality coffee was not an accident, it was deliberately made and fully available to anyone who was willing to pay a higher price tag.
Other countries followed Colombia’s steps, improving sorting and processing techniques, sparking the Specialty Coffee culture and popularity we know today.
Unsurprisingly, Brazil didn’t take long to catch up with Specialty Coffee production and today, it is the largest global exporter, representing as much as 50% of their total coffee revenue.
What do all these have to do with roast coffee color?
Unlike the past, high quality coffees are readily available and abundant particularly in the US and Europe. Coffee professionals no longer need to scrutinize hundreds or thousands of samples to find a “clean cup”. Additionally, small coffee producing countries are differentiating their offerings by using quality to neutralize the devastating effects of market volatility.
In a nutshell
Considering, great coffees’ current abundance and low prices, it is no longer necessary to turn coffee more palatable by hidden defects behind a roast profile. Nevertheless, for commercial coffees it is still a vital tool.
However, there are certain instances, where a darker roast provides an enhance coffee experience. Nevertheless, as coffee gets darker, it proportionally loses important attributes like, sweetness, complexity, brightness and terroir identity in favor of characteristics proper to the roast.
These attributes are essential, not only for the pleasant drinking experience they offer but also because they are key indicators of freshness, ripeness level and cleanliness during processing.
SEE ALSO: Why does coffee matter?
As we can see in the previous image, where two coffees, one Specialty grade (red) was compared to an average one (green) and both where sensorially evaluated during different roast stages, we immediately realized the quality differences between the two, could only be perceived in a narrow roasting color range, as both get darker they become similar until they are practically identical despite their differences in origin, characteristics, price and attention to detail during processing.
While, dark roast commodity coffee represents an advantage to the consumer by offering a cleaner and pleasant experience, doing the same to Specialty coffee however just nullifies its uniqueness and properties – not to mention the higher risk of spoiling after inner oils are exposed to the air.
My customers just drink dark roast. What can I do?
“The customer is always right”. Not always, as we mentioned before, the Specialty coffee industry is too young, and not all consumers have had enough time to understand and transition to a better product.
Nonetheless, Baristas and roasters have the difficult decision to choose between roasting dark and destroy the beauty of great coffees, keep buying commercial grade or educate the final consumers as they realize what they have been missing out for the past 30 years.
The decision is yours…