"Why is dark roasted coffee so good?"

I always explain it to customers this way:

Say you have a still-warm slice of a baguette that was baked fresh a half an hour ago by a third generation French baker in a traditional, eighty year old brick oven in a remote village in the outskirts of Gascony.

And say you have a slice of two week old Wonder Bread, that’s been sitting in the bottom of your fridge.

Drop the two of them in your toaster, and let it work its magic until the slices are nice and black. Now, bring in a panel of the world’s leading chefs and culinary experts to evaluate which piece of burnt toast is best.

Ignoring the differences in texture and shape, I think they’d find the two pieces TASTE THE SAME!

The charcoal and burnt flavors dominate the flavor profile, and what merits the fancy baguette had are just a memory forever erased by a pretty significant chemical reaction.

Guess what, coffee is the same way.

A LOT (not all) roasters find it easy to pawn off shoddy beans under the guise of a “gourmet” French Roast. Dark roasting can significantly mask the fact that the coffee is actually low-grown, poorly warehoused, two-year old Colombian that they bought for 45 cents a pound. A LOT of quality and consistency issues can be side-stepped by roasting dark. After all, the dominant flavor is char and perhaps some caramel notes from the burned sugars in the bean… those flavors will develop no matter what kind of bean you roast.

“Why drink the light roast?”

Well, the folks at the Ugly Mug are part of a great movement in the coffee world. It’s a radical idea that people should TASTE THE COFFEE and that the coffee should be TASTABLE! They’ve formed some pretty remarkable relationships with people who get their hands on some great green beans. They don’t need to roast dark to hide the defects, blandness, or age of their coffee.

Chemically speaking, coffee is much more complex in terms of flavor compounds than wine. Unlike wine, you can get a cup of the worlds best for under three bucks.

“Well, what’s the difference between the good stuff and the bad?”

When you order a cup of their light roast, ignore your immediate need for a fix, and TASTE IT! Do it for the sake of science! Ask yourself “what is going on in this cup?” Are the flavors at the front of your tongue or at the back of your mouth? Is it fruity? Savory? Notice how the flavor changes as the cup cools.

Taste like you’re squinting to see something real small. Try another cup another day. How are they different?

POOF!

A whole world will open up to you. You’ll find yourself thinking things like “Wow, the blackcurrant in this Nicaraguan is way more pronounced this year!” Lighter roasted coffee will make these little details more apparent. Sure, I’ve had tasty dark roasts made with excellent beans but nothing accentuates a GREAT coffee’s nuances like a lighter roast.

In terms of coffee quality, the Ugly Mug is easily the best coffeehouse I’ve visited in Michigan. If you live nearby, consider yourself VERY LUCKY. While you’re there ordering your cup of joe, you’ll do best to keep things light.

-JIm

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JIm Saborío has worked behind coffee bars for thirteen years and has home roasted coffee for seven. He currently manages Ann Arbor’s Café Zola, and runs the so-so coffee program there.

This is a new feature we're calling , "know your barista".
Meet Jake.
Jake is a true coffee shop hound. In fact, he showed up at the shop a few days after we got the keys to the building and he's been here ever since, seriously. When Jake gets off for the night, he goes down the street to the 24hr diner to drink coffee and hang out. I think he sleeps about 2hrs a day cause he usually is here around the time we open back up in the morning. He digs Russian children's books, costumes, and internet pornography.

We've been so excited about the new Synesso, I forgot to mention some of our new coffees.
We have in some of the Brasil Porta Rossa from Atlas. Very rich cocoa, ripe strawberry, and vanilla notes. It's not a bad SOS either, one of my espresso snob customers tried it and thought I added chocolate to his shot. It kinda takes on a Fruity Pebbles taste in milk, which I shamefully admit I like.
We also have in a Java Kali Bendo that reminds me a lot like those Gold&Black chocolate bars with the crystalized ginger in them. It's got a pretty heavy body and a little bit of an earthy finish, sort of pumpkiny.
Then we have a Costa Rican Diamante. On the cupping table, I picked up some anise in the aroma, and a little black cherry in the finish which I really liked. I didn't get these in the drip brew, (i kinda hate drip coffee. luckily, our new Fetco arrives Monday), but there was some kind of spicy smell, maybe nutmeg. Medium body, roasted almond and brown sugar middle notes, with a really long rum/chocolate finish. It performed very similar in french press as it did in cupping, which I thought had a better balance and finish than the drip. Also, the anise comes through more which makes for a pretty interesting cup.
Cheers.

our new slogan:

Caffe Behemoth
if you can't dig it, you ain't got no shovel.

We have a new woman in our lives. A 2group Synesso. I have been known to say that I'd probably stab someone in the face for a Synesso. Well, I didn't get to, but I did get a Synesso, so that's cool.

A sad day. Our 3 group Linea....died, a few times over. We fixed it like 3 or 4 times, but, you know, shit breaks. And in Michigan, finding someone to service a La Marzocco is pretty much impossible. So for about a week, we had no espresso drinks. Needless to say, the mood around the shop was a little tense as none of us really knew what was going to happen. All I know is, when you tell a trust fund hippy girl that she can't have a sugar-free-vanilla-half-calf-soy-latte, she can and will burn holes in you with her eyes.

Our trip to Seattle.
Day one of our stay was a bit of a whirl wind. We got off the plane and had about 2 hours to get to the NWRBC to see our friends from Victrola compete. So before checking in to our hotel, we headed straight for Victrola to meet up with superstar roasters Tony and Chad to head over to the comp. We got there in plenty of time as the entire weekend seemed to be running about a half hour late. As some of you have probably heard about, there were some problems with the tampers getting stuck in the portafilters at the NWRBC. During Kyle's set-up, he was reduced to hammering the PF against the counter to get his ergo-packer out. This ended up being an issue for several competing baristas, but nothing was really ever done about it. Kyle's routine was awesome, much like his signature drink, "The Awesome". We saw quite a few people's presentations, and Kyle really seemed to stand out. The judges, however, saw things a little differently as Kyle didn't make it to the finals. Daniel did. And Daniel was fuc*king sweet. The guy did a shot with the judges. It rocked. We met a few of the coffee illuminati hovering around the comp site and headed out. We skipped out on the party at Zoka, and went to bed early.
Day Two:
Enter V2, Victrola's beautiful new roasting location on Pike. Also, the site of the debut of the Clover 1. The Clover is the shit. Perfectly brewed, by-the-cup, coffee. This was one of the first times I have had a cup of coffee that tastes the way the grounds smell. Zander, the rep on hand from Clover, was overworked to say the least. And the poor two group Synesso was gathering dust.
The NWRBC finals were next. We caught a few finalists, but we were mostly there to see Daniel. He did very well, again, and talked the judge's ears off with a heart warming tale of the origin of his espresso cups. In the end, he placed fourth, I think. I should note, Daniel did not pratice his routine once before the comp. He said it would make him to stiff. I guess it worked.
We left the NWRBC and took some time to do some non-coffee related stuff around Capitol Hill. Got an awesome dinner, and headed for the Elysian Room Brewery for a little after party. Well, big after party. Beer was on the house and flowing freely thanks to Duane from Stumptown. At one point the kegs tapped out, so Duane was forced to wave some 100s at the keg guy to keep us in full supply. I saw Billy Wilson whine to Mark Prince about his scores, that was cool. And Melissa and I got to enjoy a "relaxing moment" out on the patio with Stephen Vick and Bronwen Serna. We met more of the celeb-baristas wandering around, and took off for some nice drunken rest.
Day Three:
This was our last day in town, and daylight savings played a cruel joke on us. We were supposed to meet up with Tony and Kyle at Victrola around 10:30am. We arrived at 9:30, hungover, pissed off. Tony was there moments before we were attempting to run off for some breakfast, and so the drama began. I was supposed to roast with Tony in efforts to boost my mediocre roasting skills into coffee-god status. Melissa was suppose to do some drink training with Kyle in efforts to boost her coffee-god status to alpha-coffee-god status. Gier, a roaster and cafe owner from Canada stopped by to watch the spectical. And a spectical it was. Upon firing up the roaster, Tony's face took on a somber tone. The main burners wouldn't fire. After hours of head scratching and fiddling, Gier took off to retrive someone from the Diedrich booth at Coffeefest. In the meantime, just about every competing barista in town stopped by to see the famous Victrola roastery. Only to be welcomed by a bunch of sad faces. Kyle showed up to do Melissa's training, which I decided to take over due to my "shot issues". And the morning was pretty much a loss. We went out to check on our friend's aparment, walk around the city, and count down the hours til we had to say goodbye. We stopped by V2 one last time to bid farewell to our friends at Victrola. Melissa pulled me an awesome shot on the 2 group Synesso they had set up, we met a few more nice coffee folks, and said bye-bye.