Turkish roast is considered one of the lightest roast profiles. As you may already know, the story behind Turkish roast profile is actually related to the prohibition of dark roasted foods and beverages. So simple solution to a big problem, people started to roast lighter and grind finer to avoid certain flavors caused by the light roast. In fact, there are those countries, where the coffees roasted for this type of brewing method leave the drum with their chaff still tightly wrapped on them (and they grind even finer in those regions). Well, Turkey is not one of those countries, but we still roast our coffees very light for Turkish brew. Since this roast profile only acceptable with very fine grind, it is literally not good for any other brewing method.

All that is said, below you'll find 2 coffees. One of them is from Turkey's most praised roaster, roasted to Turkish coffee profile and the other is from an American roaster, roasted to espresso profile. Lets guess which one is which.

Hey, kahvedelisi. It's been a while.

I'll be honest, the two have identical color on my monitor. I'm going to say the one on the right is Turkish because of the flecks of chaff.

Hi SlowRain! Yes indeed, 6 or 7 years I guess. Time flies!
Actually they do look identical on my monitor too

Is that the point you're making, that an American espresso roast is the same as a Turkish roast (light)?

To be honest, it is not an attempt at making a point. And it doesn't necessarily have to be an American roaster because roasters from Britain or Germany or Turkey or Canada are all following the same path and some of them would even perceive the picture I posted as very dark roast by today's standards. It is already deeply discussed through these forums but here my 2 cents.

Throughout years I tried as many offerings from different countries as many times I could and still keep doing so. There were those, which made me say to myself there is still hope for espresso, I can be lazy and buy roasted coffee instead of roasting myself (ie. Old black cat classic or new Black cat analog). And there were those, which I had to gargle with salt and water afterwards, due to chemical reaction I was having in my mouth thanks to underdeveloped underroast offerings (ie. Almost all Turkish roasters and hasbean from uk for the last 5 to 6 years and it gets worse)

When I started with this hobby 10 years or so ago, I had nothing but a bodum kenya press and a delonghi treviso and lots of lots of low grade lightly roasted brasil import Turkish coffee beans. And packs of stale Italian imports. Around those times you guys were roasting your own and every 1 out of 3 posts in coffee forums were about how starbucks charred the roast etc. Some of you guys had started to focus on machinery because obviously skilfully crafted espresso was starting to become easily available. As a result, more capable machinary was on demand so we could extract those delicious hidden flavors from the phenomenon called coffee beans roasted for espresso. Eeeeverbody got high end machines, year after year, newer, better, more, grinders, bigger ones, 58, 64, 75, 83, 98! Now I am curious what went wrong along the way and instead of extracting those renowned flavors with the aid of these very capable machines, now we are trying to convince new comers, who complain about off tastes such as sourness or bitterness, that if they want to be able to get a decent shot out of their very expensive machines, then they should grind finer dose less pass more water through the coffee weight the yield weight the grind weight the water weight me weight you etc.

This roast profile, which I am comparing to a Turkish roast profile, is gimme leftist. I still won't mention if it is the one on the left or right. It is a blend often recommended to newbies who look for a darker roast. It was one of the few I had not tried. I finally did and supporting an acid reflux plus sandpaper tongue as I type these. It made me question all my efforts at searching after better beans, going through all the trouble to source them, honing my skills as home barista etc. I feel like why bother?

And no, I am not buying a f@*+g $150 scale. That must be the whole purpose of this light roast espresso bulls#*t.

All that is said, please feel free to join the guessing game. Which one is Turkish and which one is espresso?

As you say, "resistance is futile"! (Not) Points well taken, though.

I've seen increasing emphasis on the forums on trying different levels of roast. I look at it as expanding one's selection. Here are recent ones on going darker after a revolt against chlorogenic shots.

Back to caramel bomb coffees

Italian Espresso: Tasting and Comparing

Coffees with good chocolate/caramel flavor

Some of us aren't going after all the new and expensive gear. Yes, it gets lots of discussion because gearheads like to talk about hardware. But some don't feel additional equipment upgrade needs, especially in the Levers forum.

I'm happy with my 68mm conical burr grinders (Pharos and Fiorenzato Doge) and a commercial lever I restored dating back to the 1970s with a PID I installed for better temperature control.

There's a mid-level emerging in machines, including the Breville Dual Boiler, the Quick Mill Carola, etc., and for pressure profiling the Decent Espresso machine.

In the home barista realm, I don't know if we've seen a climb toward more expensive equipment as we have an acknowledgement that the relationship between a coffee's extraction and it's brew profile is a lot more complex than simply 9 bar for 25 seconds of 2oz of espresso. The temperature, preinfusion and pressure profile of the brew can vary wildly from coffee to coffee to get the desired taste, and with acceptable espresso range going from dark all the way to cinnamon now there is a large desire among home baristas to be able to control and wield all of these variables in order to get flavors in the coffee never before able to be enjoyably experienced at the intensity of espresso. For some this means buying a super high tech and expensive machine, for others this means learning to use a lever. It has been observed at least on this forum that levers are growing in popularity among home baristas, and with modern hand grinders world class espresso from a range of roasts can be had for a combined total of well less than $1000 USD.

I like a heavy bodied chocolate bomb as much as the next fella but I enjoy blueberry bombs too. And shots that taste like brown sugar and cherries. There is something exquisite about a shot that tastes like Merlot and marshmallows, and all of this from a machine that was designed in the late 50's.

kahvedelisi wrote:And no, I am not buying a f@*+g $150 scale. That must be the whole purpose of this light roast espresso bulls#*t.

All that is said, please feel free to join the guessing game. Which one is Turkish and which one is espresso?

The whole purpose is not to buy a $150 scale, but to buy a $730 refractometer, and $150 of software and accessories to go with it .

OTOH, I just picked up a Turkish coffee maker (Beko), and am having fun figuring out how to grind for it, and eventually roast for it. Your posts from years past have been very helpful. Thank-you for your contributions.

As for the coffee - it all looks the same to me.

I'd also guess the right hand pile is the turkish roast, but there is no discernable difference other than the chaff IMO....

Just buy a cheap 'dope dealer' scale, max 20 €, I use one from time to time to 'calibrate' the darkroom timer attached to the grinder and it also comes in handy during cooking etc. I'm a 'leverist', and also not favoring acidity so a while ago I started roasting as most roasted 'software' that I could buy did not well for the combination of my vintage lever and my tastebuds and I find it very rewarding so far (still using a MacGyverish solution to roast). In my experience there always be some folks that will be going after the highest obtainable level of quality of whatever, and there invariably are some that get lost in the shiny object fetishism that seems to be genetically linked to the male chromosomes. I have listened stereo's easily costing as much as a very decent home, but the owner had no more than a handfull of recordings to listen to...the good part is, I can make my own choices and so can you

Run out and buy an old mechanical powder scale and learn how to convert grains to grams. You will have precision and change from a $20.00 bill but no bling and no electronics that fails in a couple of years as long as you keep it perfectly dry, sooner if soaked.

I am of the exact same mind as kahvedelisi and drgary regarding equipment and roast levels. Probably the major difference here is I have been a coffee consumer for better than 65 years and was familiarized with American espresso in the very early 1960s in Denver, CO and New Haven, CT. It is possible to produce excellent espresso by either roasting your own greens or finding the imported blend that meets your taste requirements, all that is required is to disregard all the 3rd wave blather about what equipment you must have and what operating procedure you must follow to get good results in the cup. As everybody is an individual with individual tastes and desires there will be a large diversity of opinion and coffee preparation is far from immune from this difference of opinion.

The right hand ground coffee has more chaff flakes in it and is a lighter roast compared to the left. This makes the rather bold assumption that both are from the same bag of greens and roasted by the same roaster.