Most specialty coffee drinkers know that how a coffee is roasted will affect its flavor; lighter coffees tend to have more acidity whereas darker roasted coffee will be more full-bodied. But beyond these very broad strokes, unless you’ve done some day-to-day production work in a roastery, you may not have a grasp on how, exactly, changes in the roast curve will appear in the cup.
Enter Mill City Roasters. The Minnesota-based roasting machine manufacturer is releasing a Roaster’s Brew Box featuring one coffee roasted in four different ways, and they’re hosting virtual cuppings to go discuss the coffee and how the changes to the roast profile—particularly at the end: the final drop time and temperature—affect the end result.
The green coffee being used for the Roaster’s Brew Box is the Colombia Manos Juntas from the Huila region, an anaerobic natural processed Pacamara variety sourced through Cafe Imports. The Manos Juntas will then be roasted in four different ways to “demonstrate how changes at the very end of the roast profile can produce uniquely different cup characteristics,” per Mill City. Using an MCR500 sample roaster the coffees will undergo Mill City’s standard sample roast profile, a “low and slow” profile developed to bring out flavors associated with natural processing, an acid-forward “hot and fast” profile, and the Goldilocks “Best of Both Worlds” in between profile.
The virtual cuppings will take place Wednesday, October 5th and Tuesday, November 29th, both at 12:00pm Central. Steaming live via both YouTube and Instagram, the sensory team at Mill City will lead all participants through the various roasts and how they ultimately present in the cup.
The Roaster’s Brew Box runs $48 per set, and all boxes will need to be ordered at least one week prior to the virtual cupping date. For more information on the coffee, the roast profiles, or the cupping or to order a box of your own, visit Mill City’s Roasters’ official website.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
