You probably already bought your coffee grinder and the fancy brewing equipment. You got everything figured out, but wait a second what is all this talk about roasting levels?

Let us try to provide a little insight into this topic. Lets start with the different roasting levels for a filter brewing method. At Baba Seed we roast three levels although there are much more. We roast light roast, medium roast and full city (our darker roast). Below some info about those profiles.

Light & Medium roast

Light roast is roasting coffees to show as much brightness and fruitiness as possible due to the high amount of organic compounds present prior to development stage. So we drop the coffee usually right around first crack which is the first til-tale of the development stage. Light roasts can be tricky since its right at the end of browning stage and the beginning of the development stage (exothermic reaction).

The medium roast is our preferred level. We give the coffee a little more heat and time to bring out the sweetness of the coffee a little more and ensuring development is given some time.

The ideal brewing method for coffees roasted in the light to the medium levels is via equipment that have the coffee pass through a paper filter like pour over (pictured above), Siphon for a well balanced mouth feel or Aeropress for quick nice brew.

City Roast

For city roast level the acidity is at a minimum while the body is well developed. Its generally a good roast profile for people who don't like acidic flavors and to achieve this roast profile coffee is roasted a little longer and given more time in the post first crack time (around 1.5 min to 2 min). We also find this roast profile ideal if you add milk and sugar to your coffee and Turkish coffee brewing. Similar treats are also sought for the espresso roast but that would be a topic for another blog article.