It is no secret that without coffee beans you can’t have coffee. So, it makes sense that to have the very best cup of coffee, then you are going to need to understand a bit more about the beans that make it.
One of the first things that you should know about coffee beans is that the glorious flavour of coffee is only released from them when they are roasted. This means that if you picked a bean off of the bush, then it isn’t going to taste as you would expect. It would also look green too.
Roasting coffee beans for flavour
When you roast coffee beans you are taking them from green into brown and there are three main stages that the bean will need to go through in order to look like the roasted beans that we are used to.
The first stage is drying, the drying stage only lasts around 4-8 minutes and is completed in a traditional drum roaster at a temperature of around 160°c. It is important that you don’t burn the beans so you don’t want to put them for too long or have them at too high a heat.
Once the drying stage is over, you will find that the coffee beans start to give off a smell like hay and toasted bread, this means that you are coming out of the drying stage and entering into the browning stage. During this time the amino acids and the sugars in the beans are reduced and whilst the beans are still drying, they are also roasting slowly too. When you hear the first crack of the beans, then coffee browning is coming to an end and the beans have entered into the development stage.
Also known as the roasting stage, the development stage is important because it helps the aroma of the coffee to be released. It is important that during the development stage of the roasting process everything is slowed right down, if you don’t, then you might find that your coffee is too sharp and that is not as tasty as it should be.
Creating coffee beans as we know isn’t a quick or easy process, it takes time and it takes effort. However, the best thing about it is that in the end you will be left with delicious coffee beans that you can enjoy as often as you like.
Want to buy your very own beans and make coffee at home? Why not check out our shop? With everything that you need in one place, you are sure to find exactly what you are looking for!