Is there an Italian style of roasting?

[orwa]

Hello everyone,

When I was a teenager (a young man I am now), I used to love the Costa chain espresso blend, then, I switched to another Italian blend (Fergnano, because it was cheaper ), later on, I tasted the supermarket Lavazza "Crema and Aroma" blend, which was great (and cheap, for a limited period of time), and very recently, I found another Italian brand, but I forgot the name (Kiko?). One interesting observation was that they were all similar, to a great extent, both in the appearance of the bean and in the general taste.

I always adored how the beans looked like in these blends, they were all reddish, of an enamel-like sheen and never oily (Looks like a medium -city?, roast). I always wondered, how can they be so shiny and elegant-looking in that degree of roast? The beans were also sort-of-hard, which is something I can always feel when I grind by hand. Moreover, the nut component in their taste was so high, and they seemed in general to be intrinsically astringent somehow (May be due to the robustas... I don't honestly know how robusta coffees taste like when alone , but the blends were most of the time announced to contain a small percentage of robusta coffees -reaching 40% in the cheapest Fergnano blend). Also, I always adored their body, which is a quality that I seem to love in the drink, especially that all of my home-roasted coffees are of volatile crema and of lesser body (though more fragrant, which isn't necessarily a positive attribute when mixing with milk). I would love to be able to roast beans that are similar in all of these regards to these Italian blends, is that possible? that is, is it simply a roasting style that is responsible for most of these qualities? this is one thing that I am very curious about .

Sorry for overwhelming you with descriptions, it's actually a single question, but a one that needs elaboration to communicate my distant, isolated experience with coffee.

Thanks!

[another_jim]

There are rumors about peculiar methods used by Italians for espresso roasting, but the whole thing is shrouded in a fog of trade secrets. One thing I've heard is that the roast is nearly stalled for two to four minutes just ahead and going into the first crack.

Quite frankly, for me, the coffees about which these claims are made, like Lavazza, are lousy. So I can both believe they've been misroasted in some creative fashion, without being inclined to find out how.

[orwa]

...

Quite frankly, for me, the coffees about which these claims are made, like Lavazza, are lousy. So I can both believe they've been misroasted in some creative fashion, without being inclined to find out how.

Ha ha

Then what about the enamel-like sheen with a medium roast, compared to the dry surface usually seen. I would like to know how to achieve this (based on the assumption that things look best at their best).

In the past few months, I tried to roast coffee in a small electric oven, using a home-made drum that is mount on the built-in rotisserie. The electric oven did not give much heat and my roasts on that oven took between 20 to 30 minutes. One thing I tried later was to let the beans cool down for a couple of hours, and then to put them back in the oven for 10 minutes under full heat (which isn't much). The result was that the light-roasted beans were not at all roasted in these ten minutes but happened to have a beautiful finish. The result was not as elegant as it is in some of these Italian blends, but it made me believe that a roasting technique can do it. However, the observation that beans had to cool down completely at the inside for this technique to work, or otherwise the roasting will continue, made me wonder how this can this be done in a single step.

[another_jim]

A cafe in Berne whose name I forget is famous for double roasting like you did. It was apparently a common technique a century ago. The color of the beans is said to be much better when this is done.

In those days, beans were dry processed, mostly somewhat fermented, poorly stored, and considered better if aged; they would have been similar to today's low grade Ethiopian coffees or the "triage coffees" that are not exported, but consumed locally. It could be that for beans like this, a double roasting technique, either in one step or two, may make them smoother and more palatable. Large Italian roasters will use sophisticated fixed drum convection roasters; it could be that something like double roasting is possible in one passage with them, but not in a regular oven

[orwa]

I just tried to follow the advice of (mis)roasting creatively while I was roasting some Mokha beans in the regular oven in the kitchen (no rotisserie, only a single layer of green beans on the tray). Surprisingly, the roast came out somehow similar to what I was seeking ...



Aren't they gorgeous ?

[another_jim]

Mokha beans always roast that gorgeous -- they are as technique independent as coffee gets.

[orwa]

I roast Yemeni coffee a lot (however, the names I usually hear are different, like Yaf'i يافعي, Kholanie خولاني, Barrie بَرِّي -means wild, Ba7rie بحري -doesn't mean but is actually peaberry, etc.), and I am used to a spectrum of characters they can produce, depending on the roasting method used. For example, I tried to roast them in a popcorn poper, in which case I get a darker bean with a dry surface, but the development is high, the aroma is overwhelming and the taste is sharp and chocolatey. I also tried to use other roasting methods that are less likely to burn the beans (less capable of providing abundant heat), and ended up with a half-city roast, a harder bean and a dry bean surface as well. The taste of this light roasted coffee, if rested properly, was special in the sense that it only needed milk to resemble caramel, producing a caramelly latte that I thought was worthy. In both scenarios, fruity tastes did not exist, and the beans had a dry surface. However, with the previously-shown roasted beans, which I have roasted only 12 hours ago and tasted only a single espresso out of, the fruity taste is not only there but is different... It is almost exactly the same taste I always loved in the Costa chain espresso blend (by the way, all the other Italian blends I referred to lacked this property, and were more astringent). It's a cherry-like fruity component whose acidity is low and sharpness is high, that is, it's so... compelling, and the smell reminiscent in the cup aids the claim too.

In brief, this roast tastes different at least from what "I" am used to in my other experiments with Yemeni coffee, and looks different too. Note that it's also possible that this batch of Yemeni coffee I got was different, although I don't tend to think so, but it can well be the case.

[another_jim]

The trade names you are giving are different. Hereabouts, the coffees trade under the names of the regions they come from -- Sanani is the trade name for generic Yemen, while Haimi, Mattari, and Hirazi are supposedly more specific place names. The only fruity Yemens I've tried are from Haimi. Coffee importers here say that Yemen coffee is more highly prized in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, so it's likely you are able to get higher grades of bean than we do.