Metropolis Coffee Roasters – Chicago’s “other” Third Wave coffee empire – have recently pulled “French” and “Italian” roast profiles from their menu. We turn you over to their unfortunately titled “Notes From The Undergrounds” blog for more info:
To us, a great coffee is well grown, well processed and well roasted; one that tells a story of a place and its people. For starters, when conducting our standardized cupping evaluations, we look for coffees of extraordinary quality. Then, when roasting, we seek to do as little as possible to the coffee so that we arrive at its pure essence; what we call ‘the thing in itself.’
Why not French or Italian Roast?
Ultimately, we concluded that offering these darker roasts conflicted with our mission. This is not to say that French or Italian are bad or are not enjoyable; it just means that we don’t wish to offer coffees with predominantly char and smoke flavors that overwhelm the varietal essence of the underlying coffee.
Read more at (ugh) Notes From The Undergrounds
