Back to Starbucks Store |
The Roasting Story |
Coffees: Mild to Bold
Brewing the Best Cup |
Growing Regions |
FAQs
The Roasting Story
Starbucks is passionate about the way they roast their coffee. It's called the
Starbucks Roast®. It's more than a color: it is the cumulative, positive,
and dramatic result of roasting each coffee in a unique way, helping each
one reach its maximum flavor. The color can be duplicated, but the taste
cannot.
The coffee bean begins its life as the prize inside a bright red coffee
cherry. It takes about five years before a coffee tree produces a
harvestable crop of cherries, and each tree only produces the equivalent of
a pound of roasted beans per year. To prepare the pebble-like green coffee
beans for roasting, growers process them using either the natural or the
washed method. Through the natural method, ripe coffee cherries are allowed
to dry on the tree or on the ground before the beans are removed by hulling.
Through the washed method, the beans are immediately separated from the
cherries, submerged in a vat of water then dried on large patios or
with modern equipment.
Green coffee beans are heated in a large rotating drum, then their
transformation begins. After about 5 to 7 minutes of intense heat, much of
their moisture evaporates. The beans turn a yellow color and smell a little
like popcorn. After about 8 minutes in the roaster, the "first pop" occurs.
The beans double in size, crackling as they expand. They are now light
brown. Very sour one-dimensional flavor notes are dominant, while more
complex coffee flavors haven't yet developed.
After 10-11 minutes in the roaster, the beans reach an even brown color, and
oil starts to appear on the surface of the bean. At this roasting time
(different for each coffee, but usually somewhere between 11 and 15
minutes), the full flavor potential begins to develop in the beans, bringing
all of their attributes into balance. The "second pop" signals that the
coffee is almost ready. The moment that the coffee is released into the
cooling tray is a memorable one. The smell of freshly roasted coffee fills
the air, along with the sound of applause created by the final clapping of
the "second pop."
|
