STORY

“French Roast” are considered dirty words in Specialty Coffee circles. Most in the business turn their noses up at the mere mention of roasting a coffee, any coffee, past the lightly roasted City level. This somewhat snobby view is not without merit, however. Traditionally, when developing a French Roast, coffee companies use their cheapest beans and roast the coffee to the point of making charcoal, which indeed usually tastes horrid.

We don’t make charcoal here at BRCR. While this is a more developed roast profile compared to our lighter roasted offerings, we end up with something that actually tastes like coffee not burnt wood and you wont notice a ton of oil on the beans surface. And, we use damn good coffee beans.

For this version of our French, the beans are from our Direct Trade partners at Finca La Providencia in Guatemala. La Providencia is located high in the mountainous region of Huehuetenango. The ultra high elevation makes for a very dense coffee bean, one that can handle a more intense roasting environment and deeper development without being too bitter or smokey.