Everyday Beans Podcast - Mostly About Coffee and Other Stuff

Beyond Acidity: My Quest to Enjoy Light Roast

• Oaks, the coffee guy • Season 1 • Episode 162

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In this episode, I dive deep into my complex relationship with light roast coffee and announce a month-long challenge to truly understand it better. I share my frustrations as a medium and dark roast lover who once appreciated light roasts but now struggles to find anything beyond acidity in them. I discuss how, as a coffee roaster, I'm uniquely positioned to explore different variables including roast development, brewing methods, and coffee origins to see if I can rediscover what makes light roast special.

By listening to this episode, you'll gain insight into the nuanced world of coffee preferences and learn about my experimental approach to coffee tasting. Whether you're a light roast enthusiast or skeptic, this episode invites you to join me on this journey of challenging our coffee assumptions and expanding our understanding of what makes coffee enjoyable across the spectrum of roast profiles.

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For tips, tricks and still trying to figure it out: https://www.youtube.com/@everyday-beans

[00:00] Today is February 8, 2025. This one is going to be very interesting. I was thinking about it for the past couple of days, and I've just been getting really frustrated with the whole light roast thing. I don't get it anymore.

[00:23] It's kind of late right now, but I'm not gonna finish this. Don't care for it. And that's the topic of the day - light roast. I've been digging on light roast for the past couple of weeks, months or whatever. I've been talking about it. I had a little breakthrough to an extent with the AeroPress of light roast tasting a lot better on the brewer. And then tasting coffee with my third wave water and all that good stuff.

[00:50] It has been going fine, but something about this whole light roast thing... I've been writing about it. The reason why I started to write in particular about light roast is because I think it's time to truly figure it out. What I mean by that is that I think I'm going to go for a month, a month-long challenge of truly trying to figure out light roast. Seeing if it's possible to enjoy light roast as a medium and dark roast coffee drinker.

[01:20] I think we all go through that, especially the people who don't care for light roast. Light roast, I believe, is something that people think that they like. It's kind of like the dark roast thing to an extent. It's like "if it's darker, I'm a man, I drink it and the bitter, the harsher it is, the more I can take it." And then you have the light roast crowd who likes clarity.

[01:45] I don't know what they like about it anymore. I don't get that. All I get is acidity. Don't get really much sweetness on the coffee. There's no real kind of balance in the coffee. And that's the thing that I want to explore. I want to see if it's really possible for me to truly enjoy it.

[02:05] I know there's people like you probably in the same boat. Or you can't get medium roast or dark roast, whatever the case, we'll go through that rabbit hole another day. But I guess what I'm saying here right now is that it's truly just about exploring something that I used to love and care about. All I cared about was light roast. All I cared about was tasting it as pure as possible.

[02:30] But then after a while, it just started tasting like unripe tomatoes. And it wasn't cool. It was kind of weird. It didn't do much of anything for me. And no matter which ones I did taste, they all really tasted the same. Varying degrees of acidity, right? That's the only thing that was different about those coffees.

[02:50] They're light. And they're right. And that's what we were told that we needed to enjoy. But I'm a medium and dark roast person. I truly really am. Especially when I have it in a way where I can taste the nuances and the things that it just talks to me with the coffee. It really does do that. But I haven't gotten that with the light roast, not to the point to where I used to crave it.

[03:20] I wonder if it was the first thing that I really truly tasted, especially coming from an Ethiopian or African or Kenyan coffee in the beginning, because that's how those coffees were just right in your face.

[03:45] So I want to challenge myself to push through this whole dynamic. I don't really know where this is going to go. I hope whichever way I go about it, you're up for the challenge too. I hope that we as coffee people learn something from this whole approach to coffee. Because I think we can learn about every preference of coffees and try to enjoy them as much as we can to an extent.

[04:10] Here's some of the parameters because I have past week or two roasted and tasted some light roast. Here's some of the parameters that I'm going to be working on or be using in this whole experiments saga or journey. It has to be developed to an extent. I just recently roasted some coffees. I purposely roasted them light.

[04:30] One of them I roasted extremely fast. First crack was about six minutes and 30 seconds. The other one is a little bit more developed, but they're still very high, like an 85, 80, something like that on my meter. And of course when I'm tasting it, that's what I taste too.

[04:50] But it needs to be developed because sometimes with those fast roasts, you are not really tasting the things that you need to. You just taste acidity. That's all you taste. Just a lemon juice. That's what it is. It's a lemon juice water.

[05:10] So the coffee needs to be developed. And what I mean by development is that it has to take its time a little bit to get to first crack. And then when it's in first crack, I can go ahead and cut it off, you know, 30, 45 seconds, something like that. So it's still going to be light roasted coffee.

[05:30] But I need to be able to figure out a little bit to develop it a little bit. I think the other two that I did were developed just fine. But it still tastes like shit. And what we're going to be doing with this whole thing is that we're going to be roasting a couple different coffees.

[05:50] The cool thing about this is that me being a roaster, I can really do this. And I can truly see if there is a big difference in all the different light roasts that we've been drinking and tasting, because it could get to the point to where the whole thing is a particular coffee that really works as light roast.

[06:15] I wonder if the Brazilian coffee that I love and enjoy that I call my bottom bitch - and I shouldn't have said that, but you understand what I'm saying. And that's my coffee. That's the one that everybody loves and enjoys. But I wonder if that Brazilian is the one that needs to be the light roast.

[06:35] I wonder if the Kenyan, the Africans and all that, they're more like a medium and dark roast. They're not so much a light roast. I don't know, I'm really going down this rabbit hole of trying to understand what light roast is and what that really means, and how we can truly enjoy it.

[06:55] And I'm not just talking about black coffee drinkers. I'm talking about also creamers. People who drink it with creamers, because when you do that, you think that you need more creamer, you make it stronger. But you really can't do that just because that's just the way of the nature of the light roasted coffee.

[07:15] So a month long, I'll be writing about it. I'll be talking about it. Be ranting about it. Probably start my first batch of roasting a couple of coffees, letting it sit for a couple of days, and then just trying it out.

[07:30] Maybe light roast is best as an espresso. Probably that intensity brings out the best of actually what we can taste in the coffee. That's probably where we're going to be at. It could be a brewing method. It could be the particular origin. It could be whatever it may be.

[07:50] We're really going to step in deep with this whole experiment with the coffees that I do have right now. I think I may probably tomorrow go ahead and play around with them as an espresso, kind of get an idea with that to see if I can get some type of breakthrough in the whole saga.

[08:15] That's the things that I'm going to explore, try to understand and share with you as much as I can. Because I'm sure you're wondering that too. This whole light roast thing, is it good? Why is it good? If I don't think it's good, and you think it's good, why do you think it's good?

[08:35] Those are some of the things that we need to answer together. Because as much as I am here to be the guinea pig in this whole saga, it'll be great to also get some information from you. To understand the things that we're trying to do. Because that's where we're at with this.

[08:55] Again, it's one of those things that I want to figure out. Because this coffee thing is weird. It's not exact. It's mostly we play in a gray area. There's so many different variables, coffee changes by the day. And then after a while, it really just goes to an extent downhill.

[09:20] And then we are using different waters and brewers and we have our own preferences and things that we like in our coffee. We have additives sometimes, we don't have additives. Sometimes we like to do creamer, we like to do alcohol, we like to make a mixed drink, we like to drink it for the purity that it is.

[09:40] And as you see, as I do, I do different experiments to push the boundaries of what I really understand. That's kind of like more so what I feel at that moment, which is perfectly fine. It could just whip you right back in the face to the point to where you're like, "wow, that's coffee today."

[10:00] Or we can be totally disappointed in it to the point to where we're questioning our love for it, we're questioning why we like doing the things that we like to do. So those are some of the things that I'm really trying to get at, to explore to understand even more so.

[10:20] And I hope that you are here also in order for us to truly get there together. Because again, this is not a light roasted, medium roasted, dark roasted, and all in between against each other. This is us understanding our coffees.

[10:40] And it really kind of challenging ourselves to the point to where we're asking ourselves like, why do we like this? What are the parameters that we make it work? What is it that kind of gets us moving and grooving and understanding our coffees even more so to the point to where we can really, truly express ourselves and to others and get them to see it from the way that we understand coffee.

[11:10] That's where I'm at. I hope that you are also there too. And those are some of the things that I think about. But this one's going to be a little bit more challenging, I think it's going to be a ride.

[11:25] And I hope that I'm able to push myself to the point to convey the information to you as clearly as possible. Just as much as I'm trying to get as much clarity out of coffee in general. And I hope that I get more than just acidity, varying degrees of acidity, harsh, soft, whatever, playing around with temperatures and all that good stuff.

[11:50] We're going to do all that stuff. But at the end of the day, I do want some type of sweetness on this coffee. And I wonder if it's possible to really, truly enjoy light roast the way it is.

[12:10] That's what I got for you today. It's more so letting you know a challenge that I'm going to be embarking on. And I hope that you are up for the ride. We'll see how it goes. Because this right now... we can do better than this.

[12:30] We're going to figure out why we like it, why we don't. And then we're going to see if we can actually get there together. So this is Oki at Everyday Vein signing out. I'll talk to you later. Bye.