When customers come into Red Whale Coffee and ask for a dark roast coffee, we often respond with one question: “What do you like about a dark roast?”
Surprised by this question, customers naturally assume that a dark roast coffee will provide a fuller bean flavor and a better cup of coffee. In reality, what most people misunderstand is the relationship between the flavor of the coffee and the degree to which the coffee bean is roasted. A full body coffee does not necessarily have to be dark roasted, and a dark roast can sometimes disguise the natural flavor of the bean.
People choose coffee based upon taste, flavor and aroma. Understanding how the roasting process affects the taste of the coffee may affect your choice the next time you order a cup of coffee.
Light, Medium or Dark Roast?
The taste of the coffee bean consists of a variety of factors, including the age of coffee, the environment in which the beans are grown, and the method for grinding, processing, and brewing the bean. But the degree to which a bean is roasted provides the best guideline for how the coffee is going to taste. The most popular, but probably the least accurate, method of determining the degree of roast is to judge the bean's color by eye. Scientifically, as the beans absorb heat, the color shifts from green to golden and then to increasingly darker shades of brown. During the later stages of roasting, as the beans darken, oils may start to show. The roast will continue to darken until it is removed from the heat source. Beans will also darken as they age, making color alone a poor roast determinant.
Beans have specific characteristics and profiles based upon a variety of organic factors and the different degrees of roast alter those features. Many roasters use a combination of bean mass temperature, smell, color, and sound to monitor the roasting process.
The goal in roasting a bean is to maintain its natural profile and accentuate its taste rather than depleting the bean through the roast, of its natural flavors. With a lighter roast, the bean will exhibit more of it’s "origin flavor:" the natural flavors created in the bean by its variety, the soil, altitude, and weather conditions in the location where it was grown. As the beans darken to a deep brown, the origin flavors of the bean are eclipsed by the flavors created by the roasting process itself. At darker roasts, the "roast flavor" is so dominant that it can be difficult to distinguish the origin of the beans used in the roast.
Characteristics of a Light to Medium Roast Coffee:
- Origin flavor of the bean is easily identified
- Original characteristics of beans remain intact
- High acidity
- Beans become very bright and light brown in color
- Higher levels of caffeine
Characteristics of a Medium Roast Coffee:
- Origin flavor of the bean is less distinguished
- Balance of acidity, bitterness, fullness
- Beans become medium brown in color
- Caffeine level decreases somewhat
Characteristics of a Dark Roast Coffee:
- Bean flavor starts to lose origin distinction
- Flavor eclipsed by the roasting process
- Loss of brightness among beans
- Increase in bitterness
- Beans become dark brown in color
- Caffeine levels drop
How is a Coffee Drinker to Decide?
Well, if you’re in the area you should stop by our location in San Rafael (Marin County) for a tasting!
To decide what coffee to order, consider explaining what flavors you prefer. Use terms such as rich, nutty, full-bodied, crisp, and bright to improve the chances you will get the taste you want instead of asking for a coffee by the degree it was roasted.
When you share your coffee preferences with us at Red Whale Coffee, we can help you pick an amazing coffee. Whether your preference is full-bodied or something more fruity, we want to make sure you always have great coffee in your life. Please do not hesitate to email us or call (855) 906- 6277 with questions or comments.
All of our coffees can be found, by region:
Shop Red Whale Coffees by Region.
In the Ethiopian valley of Amaro lies a coffee mill known for its aromatic flavors, a combination of rich fruit, luscious citrus, and mouth-watering chocolate. Exported world-wide, Amaro Gayo coffee is known not only for its excellent flavor, but also for the fact that it is the only coffee in Ethiopia milled and exported by a woman.
In 2005, Asnakech Thomas returned to her native town of Ethiopia from England to not only improve the quality and flavor of coffee, but also the living conditions of the community in which she grew up.
Concerned about the poor health care available in Amaro and rural Ethiopia, Thomas hopes that Amaro will establish a hospital for mothers-to-be and their young children. Expectant mothers in Amaro have to travel 116 kilometers to the nearest hospital to deliver their babies. Experiencing first-hand how her sister lost a baby during her travels, Thomas has a personal desire to have better care at a closer distance for mothers and their young children. “The mothers in the countryside are the real organizers of the families’ affairs, health and education for children,” states Thomas, “These are the ones that need help. Everyone should be aware of these issues.”
Also near and dear to Thomas’ heart is educating her community about HIV and AIDS. “I am very interested in improving the living conditions for the people of Amaro Special Woreda (district) where I was brought up through the help of USAID training and awareness about HIV (and) AIDS(which was) brought to a large group of coffee farmers in Amaro.”
With a vision in mind to help her community and create a world-renowned coffee, Thomas is scrupulous about the way she harvests, sorts, and mills the coffee beans at Amaro Gayo. Accepting only the most perfect coffee beans, Thomas works alongside the local growers at the washing station to choose only the most ripe and freshly picked cherries for processing.
Thomas’ Amaro Gayo’s mill, the only women owned mill in Ethiopia is located at an altitude of 5200 feet with their naturally processed coffee harvest schedule running between October through March. Red Whale Coffee’s Amaro Gayo, sourced from Thomas’ mill is a naturally processed coffee.. The natural process at Thomas’ mill starts by choosing only the highest quality ripe and ready coffee cherries (this quality control is maintained by Thomas herself). Cherries are then placed on raised African beds, keeping the coffee clean and free from soil. The raised bed drying method creates an even aeration, allowing the dry air to reach the beans from above and below the beds.
Amaro Gayo employs 32 full time workers year round and increases the workforce to 200 seasonal workers during critical coffee production months from September to March. Most of the workers are women and girls which gives Thomas day-to-day knowledge of their domestic and health matters. “My door is always open,” says Thomas, “and they often talk to me about their difficulties.”
In 2004, Red Whale Coffee began sourcing coffee from women-owned growers and processing mills within the Café Feminino co-operative. Raised by a single mother, Sean Boyd is a champion for the empowerment of women. He strives to support the women's movement in coffee growing regions whenever he sees an opportunity. Sourcing the highest quality coffee is paramount to his business philosophy, and when his daily business operations can support the work of women and their community, it becomes a rewarding collaboration of the labor and love for what "we" do in and with coffee, beyond the cup, making a bigger impact locally and directly at the coffee sources. “Sourcing the highest quality coffee is first and foremost and we have found that the women owned and produced coffees consistently meet or exceed our expectations! Coffee is an emotional and grass roots product that many of us don’t understand. It can change peoples lives one cup at a time, it goes beyond the cup.”- Sean Boyd
If you are interested in trying Red Whale Coffee’s Amaro Gayo naturally processed coffee we currently have it available in our webstore.
"Do you love starting your day with a cup of coffee?" Karen Pavone with Farminista's Feast sure does!
Read what Karen has to say about Red Whale Coffee!
Link to Karen Pavones food for thought and cupping with Red Whale Coffee
Satisfied customer received her Red Whale Coffee, delivered to her house, freshly and especially roasted just for her, the day after she ordered them! She sent this video to us to share her Red Whale Coffee experience. This is coffee, beyond the cup! This video shows that coffee truly can be, a special family experience!
Bikes to Rwanda is a non-profit international aid relief organization established in Portland, Oregon, United States in 2006 by Stumptown Coffee Roasters founder and CEO Duane Sorenson following a business trip to visit coffee growers' cooperatives inRwanda.
The organization's mission is "to provide cargo bicycles to co-operative coffee farmers in Rwanda. The goal is to improve quality of life in these communities through a bike workshop and maintenance program that provides transportation resources for basic needs and enhances production of quality coffee."
The bicycles are built specifically for heavy cargo, and were designed and developed by Project Rwanda with master bicycle builder Tom Ritchey. The organization also establishes bike shops in Rwanda for maintenance and repair.
This Rwanda bike was donated with the proceeds to go to benefiting the efforts of Sustainable Silicon Valley.
On Behalf of Red Whale Coffee, Sean Boyd supports the efforts of and partners with Sustainable Silicon Valley through their recent online auction with Charity Buzz. Through the purchase of the Bikes to Rwanda bike (shown above) Red Whale Coffee partners with Sustainable Silicon Valley, helping to lead the way to a bright future for all by supporting the efforts of this non-profit whose work directly affects the health of the life support systems of the planet. The Red Whale Coffee family is thrilled to be a part of the SSV's partnering consortium; companies, large and small; government entities from towns and cities to states and federal agencies; academic institutions; and non-governmental civic organizations. Each of us, as do each of you, has an important role to play is a sustaining our enviroment.
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Red Whale Coffee has a reputation as an eco-friendly company; we’ve made an effort to make only socially conscious business decisions since we were founded in 2003. Red Whale Coffee’s motto is “Coffee, beyond the cup,” which reflects our core value that we have a responsibility to help improve our global community in every way we can. We do not follow the trends in coffee just to gain a profit and will not offer solutions to the public if we feel that the solutions don’t have the global communities best interests at heart.
Here's Red Whale Coffee’s take on the Keurig system- we definitely embrace the principle of the Kuerig as a single cup brewing system! We use the single cup pour over brewing method ourselves, every day.
After acknowledging the convenience of the Keurig, this system presents more negatives than positives, for us. The waste produced by the disposable k-cup is enormous! Statistics show 54% of the population over the age of 18, drink coffee. If half of those coffee drinkers use k-cups 7 days a week, approximately 20,983,051,578 k- cups will be dumped into our landfill every year! We have a problem with this…..
The quality of the coffee used in the k-cup is “good”, at best. The coffee is stored for, who knows how long, in plastic cups. It’s then brewed, by extracting the coffee with high temperature water, through plastic! There are numerous studies that report the adverse effects of using plastic for food storage. Are we also 100% sure that the plastic cups do not contain BPA, which is proven to be related to health risks?
Does Red Whale Coffee have or use K-cups? The immediate answer is no. We have sourced a solution that addresses the convenience of the Keurig single cup brewing system while also being socially responsible and eco friendly. This system is a reusable stainless steel filter/cup, guaranteed to be MPA free and the plastic does not come into contact with the food. This system also addresses the quality issue, in that it is not pre packed. You get to choose your own fresh roasted coffee beans, which you then grind directly into the re-useable Keurig compatible cup. With this solution, you will no longer need to feel guilty about throwing away un-recyclable plastic k-cups and adding unnecessarily to our landfills. You can and will obtain a very high quality cup of coffee as long as you use high quality, freshly roasted and ground coffee.
Red Whale Coffee has done extensive research and we’ve determined that this is the best possible replacement of the k-cup solution on the market to date. We will soon be featuring and endorsing this eco-friendly re-useable cup on our website www.redwhalecoffee.com. We are and will remain determined in our commitment to offer you only the highest quality in everything that we do!
One of our customers asked whether we have light or dark roast coffees...this is a really great question which I thought deserved an answer you all could see on our blog!
We get our coffee from many all the coffee producing countries around the world. Each of our coffees are usually single estate, from small micro lots and hand farmed which means the coffee beans are of the highest quality and traceable back to the farmer himself.
Because we buy high quality beans and not commercial grade coffee, we roast specifically to accentuate the beans natural taste, every bean has a unique roast profile. We roast light. medium or dark depending on what the bean can handle, while still maintaining its own natural flavor.
When a bean is roasted too dark, the natural bean flavors are lost, eclipsed by the roast flavor which is then all you can taste. A bean can also be under roasted which creates an unpleasant flavor as well. This is where the craft of a talented, experienced roasted shines!
If you share your coffee preferences, whether you enjoy full bodied coffees or something more fruity and light- we can help you pick an amazing coffee. Please feel free to message us with questions or comments, we are always available to ensure you have great coffee in your life!
It was over 4 years ago but I remember it like it was yesterday! It was a late night after a very long day and I loved every minute of it!
