Coffee beans roasting is a good idea in order to ensure that your coffee stays fresh. You may want to use a home coffee roasting machine to roast your own coffee beans at home.
For home roasting buy fresh green coffee-beans. There are suppliers who stock up raw beans and others who will sell only fresh green beans. You want to buy beans that are not more than a few month old.
Contrary to what was once thought, unroasted coffee beans don't last for many years. It is generally agreed by experts that green beans stay fresh for up to a year.
For this reason, too, it is not advised to buy bulk green coffee-beans, but low quantities so that your beans stay fresh. Buying in bulk may save you some money, but will compromise your coffee quality as the stocked up raw beans will degrade.
There are many types of coffee beans, but two types are primarily cultivated and marketed - the Arabica and the Robusta coffee beans both of which have many sub-types.
Arabica and Robusta beans differ in their characteristics. Arabica has about half the caffeine level of the Robusta and is considered higher quality. It is more vulnerable to predators and climate conditions and harder to grow than the Robusta. The Arabica coffee beans are more expensive than the Robusta.
Robusta, however, is used sometimes by specialty coffee servers to blend and balance the coffee flavors and may be used also in espresso drinks.
Roast the beans in your own coffee roaster machine. Roasting by yourself will allow you more control over the roasting levels. You can roast to various levels from very light to very dark roasts.
As a general rule, the darker you roast the less original flavors will be retained in the beans. Coffee beans vary in flavors and aromas according to their countries of origins. Lighter roasted beans will preserve more of their original flavors than those roasted to a darker level since the roasting process extracts the inner oils and develop the flavors of the beans.
When roasting to a dark level, little of the original characteristics will be preserved and coffees originating from different places and regions will have similar tastes - a burned taste.
Once you have roasted to beans to your satisfaction it is time to package them. Roasted beans release carbon dioxide, so they are often packed after 12 to 24 hours to allow them to degas. Then the beans are vacuum packed for freshness. They can also be packed sooner after roasting in air-tight foil one-way valve bags that allow the CO2 to escape while preventing air from entering the package.
Air, moisture, heat and light are enemies of coffee. Keep it in dark, light and cool places.
Now that you have roasted your beans you can grind and brew them and enjoy a delicious cup of coffee.
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