Does a Roasting Style Actually Exist?

During the week, in a conversation with one of my clients, she said one phrase that made me want to dive deeper into the topic. I wrote it down, and I am coming back to it now.

We were talking about some complaints about the roast coming from their long-time wholesale customer. Superficially, the complaint was about the roast becoming darker. But what actually happened is that the coffees they bought—and how and when they were bought—limited the roaster. The green coffee choices more or less dictated the direction that had to be taken to make the most out of them.

And then she said that she does not want to be a person who has a roasting style, independently from the coffee in question. She sees herself more like someone who understands the coffee and chooses how to highlight the best expression of it through roasting.

Which made me think. First of all, is it even possible? And second, is there actually such a thing as a roast style?

It is surprising to me how eager we are to put a person in the middle of everything when it comes to competitions or industry idols and heroes, while at the same time, we prefer to ignore the human component in other areas of coffee—like coffee farming, processing, and to some degree, coffee roasting.

Tasting the Land vs. Tasting Human Decisions

Let’s start with coffee farming and coffee processing.

We tend to look at farming as cultivating coffee that will represent the best expression of the land. Something that you will taste and say, "That’s how coffee from Guatemala tastes!" or "That’s what a Panamanian geisha is about."

Or so we like to think.

We take the human out of the picture because we want to believe that we need to have as little intervention as possible to really taste what coffee is about. Give me the geisha, give me the typica, give me the pacamara—I want to believe that I am tasting something pure. That’s what we say.

Something that we do not take into account is this: decisions on how to farm, which varieties to plant and where, when to harvest, and how to process the coffee all come from people.

Coffee by default has a very strong human and cultural component. The philosophy of farming is already there before the coffee ever ships. The flavor is being molded and manufactured with the direct influence of a human intelligence. People are there to decide what they want to showcase and how. Sometimes the decisions are more conscious, sometimes less, but they are there. With different degrees of control, the flavor is being formed and molded, not simply “showcased.”

These decisions are not small or insignificant. They actually shape the flavor.

So the coffee coming from the farms is already a complex product. It is the result of terroir and genetics, yes—but let's not forget that farmers opt for hybrids, work with laboratories, and use specific plant management techniques or farming philosophies like regenerative agriculture.

When coffee arrives to the roaster, it is the result of all of it. Not a clean, untouched representation of the Terroir of Guatemala, but a complex product touched by many human hands.

"The Potential of Coffee"

Because of this, when the roaster steps up to do the job, I do not really think the philosophy of “showcasing the real potential of coffee” is entirely possible.

Simply because two roasters will have a very different idea of what the potential of the same coffee even is. You don’t really need to be from different cultural backgrounds for this (although that is also a factor). You simply have a different vision. You look to showcase something that you consider important, or you simply have a different final customer in mind, with their own specific preferences.

Looks like roasting, same as farming, is formed by the personal decisions of the roasters. And although they might have a goal that sounds exactly the same—"showcasing the full potential of coffee"—the final result will be totally different.

So does a roast style exist? And what is the lack of style?

Looking for the Style

I was at a cupping once, and brought the coffees of my client to a fellow roaster. We were discussing possible problems with the roasts, exchanging ideas, and sharing feedback. By the end, she said something that stayed with me for a while, and I had to really give it some thought to unpack what it actually meant.

She said: "It is noticeable that you have a style, that these coffees are roasted by the same roaster. There is something common in all of them. Congratulations!"

What was it? And is it important to have it?

I see roasting as highly logical, while at the same time based entirely on sensory feedback—feedback from our senses on whether the result of the roast is pleasant, balanced, and enjoyable to drink.

But when roasting, especially in production, and especially when planning the menu and the purchasing for the year, you will end up categorizing coffees.

With the experience you get on how to approach one origin, variety, or process versus another—plus the customer base you have, their preferences, and your own vision of what you want from coffee—you will end up with a specific tactic for each coffee. You create a starting point for the first batch with a clear idea of what you want to highlight. You choose where the sweet spot will be, what kind of balance you want to achieve between acidity, bitterness, and sweetness, and what kind of aromatics you want to bring forward.

Maybe that’s what we call a style? A stable, coherent way of approaching coffees, showcasing certain elements and hiding others.

Style Equals Stability

Is it important?

In my opinion, very. But from the point of view of stability. Style, when it is formed, represents stability.

For the client, it means they know what to expect. If they tried a similar coffee from you before, and a new one appears on the menu, they know they will find that same familiar balance. Anything that makes it easier for a person to make a choice and be satisfied with what they chose is a win, from my point of view.

While a roasting style is just the result of human decisions on how to approach certain kinds of beans, there is no right or wrong style. In the specialty coffee industry, we like to engage in these binary conversations as if it were a choice between 1 and 0, instead of a question of preference and liking.

But establishing and following a style—meaning approaching similar coffees in a coherent way to showcase the same type of balance—can be quite helpful in terms of maintaining loyal customers.

Because humans do not like to change when we find something that works.