Degree of Roast

The degree of roast relates to the color or darkness of the coffee after the roasting process. To fully understand the terminology used in the coffee industry to describe the degree of roast there is a little history to be understood. Let’s look at some of the terms used by many to describe the degree of roast. City, full city, light roast, medium roast, French roast to name a few. None of these can precisely describe the degree of roast and for some the term medium roast may mean just after the first crack while to others it may mean just before the second crack. So when these descriptions are used to describe how dark to roast a coffee there will be confusion.

To eliminate this problem the SCAA and Agtron set out to develop a degree of roast color classification system that would classify the carmelization of sucrose sugar with the degree of roast color as measured by a reflectance visible spectrophotometer. The result was a set of colored disks that could be used to describe the degree of roast of a coffee by the color of the roasted bean. These disks would be assigned a number as opposed to a descriptive name and would make it possible for someone to describe the degree of roast of a coffee to someone else without having to visually see.

Back to Table of Contents