Light roast in New England
To my coffee drinking friends in the American East (and elsewhere): I’m curious, has third wave coffee arrived? Did it get lost in translation?
Here’s why I ask: I picked up some coffee in Boston recently, and I am shocked, shocked! I say, by the definition of light roast that seems to be in play. First, a pricey bag of venerable Gesha Village Estate by esteemed roaster George Howell. It’s sold and labelled as a light roast, right in the middle of the light range. It is clearly a solid medium in colour, flavour, and bean hardness. Who am I now, to argue with George, but, here’s the kicker, it tastes like a medium roast, that is to say, chocolatey-burnt. Not ruined exactly… well, a little bit ruined. I can see these beans being to somebody’s taste, but any delicate flavours they might have had, those are lost to the burning, and to call them “lightly roasted,” that’s just wrong.
I was ready to write this off as a miscommunication or something, but next I opened a bag of Fogbuster “Blonde Bombshell” so light, you won’t believe how light this is, but brace yourself for an explosion of flavor. I’m just reading the label, here. I have never before personally handled a bean as dark as this one. They are dark. Caliginous. Stygian. Oily dark. Toss 'em in the waste heap dark, because I don’t want to have to clean my grinder from the oleaginous coating these poor, distressed beans have had forced upon them.
More than that, these beans are even darker on the inside. Fogbuster somehow injected more dark in the innards, after making the outards dark and shiny like I don’t even want to touch. What these things must taste like; I’m not even curious.
A serious question then: what constitutes a light roast in Boston? Did I just get twice unlucky?
