Anaerobic Coffee – Head Roaster of Coffee by Design Travis Spear explains, “the concept is very similar to processing wine. If a wine becomes too oxidized during fermentation, acetaldehyde can convert to acetic acid – and, fun fact – that particular organic acid tastes a whole lot like vinegar. In coffee, the benefits of approaching fermentation this way aren’t all that different. The CO2 rich atmosphere created by the anaerobic environment kind of just makes anything fruity or otherwise vibrant about a given coffee ‘pop’.”

Aerobic Coffee

Why Do Coffee Beans Need To Be Roasted? Source: Espresso International

Only by carefully roasting the cleaned and dried coffee beans, the aromas, flavors and texture that make this beverage so unique, unfold all the way.

If you ever saw a freshly picked coffee cherry before, you know that these cherries do not have much to do with the dark, aromatic beans we normally put in our espresso cooker. After extracting the beans from the cherry, freeing it from its various skins and drying it, bright, pale coffee beans remain. These raw coffee beans often contain chlorogenic acid to and extend that causes them to be somewhere between inedible and unhealthy. When exposed to heat, a lot of this acidity can be removed and the extensive flavors unfold during the Maillard reaction.

Also, raw coffee beans contain more water than roasted coffee beans. In order to actually brew a coffee, the ground beans cannot be saturated with water, otherwise they wouldn’t soak up the boiling water and none of the aromas could be extracted properly.

Depending on the condition of the raw coffee and the demands on the final product, various different roasting methods can be used. Today, there is just as many posting recipes as there is varieties of coffee. Now, more than ever, roasting coffee has become a real craft and has become a popular trade not just in Italy but in many other countries too.