Daily quality roast

At Cuprima, we roast every day, this equates to a few thousand batches a year. As a specialty coffee importer, roasting is our daily routine but not our core business. Roasting is part of our daily quality control process and limited to the main objective of having the best view on the organoleptic profiles of our coffees.

To hit that roast degree consistently, we have an important tool in our arsenal: the Agtron spectrophotometer, which analyzes the roast value. This small device measures how light or dark a coffee is by measuring the wavelengths of what is soluble in a cup of coffee. This little agricultural superhero robot then outputs an easy-to-read number that represents the degree of roast. The smaller the number, the darker the roast, while lighter roasts show a wider range. According to the SCA, the roast for cupping specialty coffee shall meet Agtron gourmet colour scores between 55 and 60* (± 1 unit).

This analyser helps us to have better consistency and fixed parameters at the time we compare coffees. The idea is to be able to have the widest range of descriptors available for a specific coffee but not meaning the best potential of these descriptors. This slight difference is important for the roaster, because this is where he/she can make the difference by enhancing the flavours of the coffees.

Tailor-roasted samples

We do not only roast for quality and benchmarking purposes, we also roast special batches of green coffee for promoting purposes. Upon request, we can provide roasters with commercial samples.

When we were roasting commercial samples exactly according to the ‘SCA-Agtron recommandations*’, the feedback we got from our roasters was basically stating that this roast is too dark for them. We started to analyse quite a few roasts in the market (of clients and non yet clients) so we could better meet their expectations. And indeed, lately ‘medium-to-light roasts’ are more fashionable. The average Agtron scores of the roasts from our market survey were 72.15 , a lighter roast than SCA is recommending*.

We tend to follow the same requirements for commercial samples, but we can easily adapt or finetune to meet your expectations and preferences. We are always open to comments and suggestions, we love to discuss roast profiles or give you tips and advice.

Roasting is a real craft, and requires a lot of devotion and knowledge. Roasting is an art, a real passion. Our passion as a specialty coffee importer is green coffee, so we surely can provide you with the ultimate green coffee qualities that are perfect for you, so you, dear Roasters, can do your magic !