Roasting (4)
- Coffee roasting — What actually happens when green coffee is cooked — the two audible cracks that mark the milestones, what light, medium and dark really mean, and why no standards body has yet defined any of those three words.
- Coffee roasting profiles — The line on a roaster’s screen — bean temperature plotted against time — and the handful of numbers on it that decide whether the same coffee tastes the same twice.
- Maillard reaction — The browning chemistry that turns a green seed brown and builds most of coffee’s aroma — what actually reacts, the temperature window it runs in, why it is not caramelization, and which of the numbers you see quoted are actually settled.
- Sample roasting — The tiny test roast that decides whether a container of green coffee gets bought — why it is deliberately bland, the 8-to-12-minute rule, and the 8-to-24-hour wait before anyone is allowed to taste it.