“Would you like light, medium, or dark roast?” is a question from your barista that creates immediate internal panic amongst most newer coffee drinkers. If you’re confused by the distinctions between light, medium, and dark then, trust me, you’re definitely not alone. Don’t fret though, I’ll make distinguishing between these different roasts crystal clear and you’ll never have to worry about this dreaded question again.

What even is roasted coffee?

I think a good place to start here is a quick origin story that’ll help explain this a little bit better. Coffee beans come from, you might’ve guessed it, a coffee plant that grows all over the world. These “beans” are not actually beans at all, but the pit inside of the red/purple-colored fruit is usually called the cherry. Once these cherries are ripe enough, they’re picked and the pit is removed from the fruit in one of two ways: washing or drying. Like any other fruit with a pit, there’s a bunch of liquids and pulp surrounding that pit. So coffee pickers either rinse the pulp off the pits (washing/wet method) or they leave them out in the sun (drying method), leaving them with what we call green coffee.

You definitely don’t want to grind up and drink green coffee. It’s filled with quite a bit of liquid and gives off a very grassy flavor. The way that we convert green coffee into something that is drinkable and enjoyable, is by roasting it. The heat from the roasting process in this massive roasting contraption (called a roaster), kickstarts a number of chemical reactions (drying, browning, and cracking) This creates the aromas and taste you would normally associate with a cup of coffee.

How does this all relate?

Let’s connect some dots here and tell you why really any of that little anecdote mattered. Simply put: you can thank the roasting process for whether you’re drinking a light, medium, or dark roast. It’s easiest if you think of this literally as in, the roast is named depending on what color the beans are after spending a certain amount of time and heat in the roaster.

A Helpful Roast Visual

It sometimes helps to see this visually...words don’t do coffee roasts justice. On the left, we start with green coffee. This is what gets sent to roasteries all over the world, in all of its raw coffee glory, to be roasted. The next pile over to the right is what would be considered a light roast: a nice toasty brown color as a result of lower internal temperatures and less time spent in the roaster. Next pile over is a medium roast: a well-toasted brown color, yet not dark enough to be considered “dark roast.” The last pile on the far right is where we end our journey out at dark roast: a heavily toasted dark, dark brown color as a result of high heat and lengthy time in the roaster.

Light Roast

Light roast coffee has the lightest brown color of coffee beans. They spend enough time in the roaster to reach an internal temperature of around 350-400℉. Light roast beans are removed from the roaster when they reach the first crack. This first cracking stage is where the beans crack open due to built-up pressure from the high heat, creating a “cracking” or “popping” sound.

Common Names

Light City, Half City, Cinnamon, New England Roast

Flavors & Taste

Lighter roasted coffees are some of the favorites in the specialty coffee world because they spend less time under less heat than any of the other roasts. Why does this matter, you ask? Well because of this, you can taste a larger variety of bright, unique flavors.

These lighter roasts tend to be sweeter, fruitier, tangier, and more floral because the beans aren’t spending enough time in the roaster to caramelize the sugars and oils in the beans. They also tend to be on the more acidic-tasting end of the coffee spectrum. Having a silkier texture, this roast of coffee really lives up to the lightness in its name.

Medium Roast

This is the next step up from light roast coffee. Spending more time and at a higher temperature (400-430℉) in the roaster, produces a toasted, milk-chocolate-colored bean. Beans are considered “medium roast” between the first crack (when the beans are considered “light roast”) and the second crack.

Common Names

Regular Roast, American Roast, City Roast, Breakfast Roast

Flavors & Taste

Medium roast coffee is much more full-bodied than light roast. Full-bodied means that the coffee beans retain a large amount of their flavor after roasting, giving its drinker a mouthful of flavors and textures. This roast tends to be really balanced and well-rounded, making it the chosen coffee roast for a large proportion of American coffee drinkers. This roast is the most “approachable” compared to light or dark roasts because it’s not too intense, without sacrificing great flavors.

Dark Roast

Last, but certainly not least, is the dark roast. This roast has beans that are extremely dark in color that have been roasted to an internal temperature of around 430-450℉. They are generally considered “dark roast” when removed from the roaster during the second crack. This roast takes the cake for being in the roaster for the longest time, at the highest temperature. A dead giveaway to knowing you’re drinking a dark roast coffee is that you can usually see residual oil left in your coffee cup. This is because the beans themselves are especially oily after coming out of the roaster.

Common Names

Full-City Roast, After Dinner Roast, Vienna Roast

Flavors & Taste

Darker roasts tend to lose a lot of their original flavors from the beans and take on entirely new flavors of their own from the roasting process itself. They embody a variety of what you would consider being “deeper and darker” flavors such as bitter, smokey, dark chocolate, nutty, and caramels. Dark roasts are usually low in acidity and very heavy-bodied. You really get a thick mouthful of these darker flavors, so make sure you’re up for the task when choosing this particular roast.

Caffeine Content

“The lighter the bean, the more caffeine,” does still stand true here. While it gets a little technical in terms of how different the caffeine content is, well, a light roast isn’t really a landslide winner. If you’re measuring your coffee beans out by the scoop, light roast does have a bit more caffeine due to the fact that lighter roasts are denser than any other roast. The longer the beans are roasted, the less mass they have...this is due to water loss! Darker roasts would be an example of a longer roast time and, therefore, having less mass and less caffeine.

The technical “amount” of caffeine per cup of coffee varies quite largely on roasting, type of bean, brewing method, and serving size. On average and for simplicity’s sake, I’ll quote Healthline when they state that the “average caffeine content of an 8-oz, brewed cup of coffee is 95 mg.”

A Final Note

Like all things coffee, everyone has their own preferences for which roast they like hence the idea of coffee snobs. It will simply just take some time for you to learn, taste, and experience for yourself about what you like and don’t like when it comes to different roasts. I firmly believe that, like all things coffee, everyone has their own preferences for which roast they like hence the idea of coffee snobs. It will simply just take some time for you to learn, taste, and experience for yourself about what you like and don’t like when it comes to different roasts. I firmly believe that the more you try out, the better you’ll be in building up your arsenal of “favorites” in the coffee world.