It is not easy to know if a coffee is of good quality, because we have long been accustomed to having little choice in stores, due to advertising and the choice limited to a few brands in supermarkets. In addition, for several years coffee has become an invisible product, packaged and over-packaged in bags, capsules and other pouches, making the choice even more difficult.

You should know that when it comes to coffee, you will most often see "affordable" but poor quality products in your stores.

Why?

Entry-level coffees (sometimes big brands!) are cooked using an industrial roasting technique, a method which consists of cooking the coffee beans by subjecting them to hot air at 360 to 700°C for 4 to 10 minutes. The grains are then cooled in air or with vaporized water to make them recover part of the weight lost during cooking. This productivist technique poses the problem of losing a large part of the aromas of your coffee (around 60%).

It looks very very good because the smell makes us salivate, but in reality it is a toasted smell which has damaged the coffee and which replaces the delicate aromas of the coffee which have disappeared.

It wouldn't occur to us to eat charred bread for breakfast, so why do it with coffee, especially since overly toasted foods contain chemical compounds with potentially negative effects on health.

There are, however, industrial and artisanal roasters who campaign for cooking methods that are more respectful of coffee. The cooking operation takes place in a cylindrical oven called the roaster: This oven is equipped with a rotating drum so that the beans, set in motion, are roasted uniformly without burning. The coffee is not in direct contact with the flame, it is heated by the diffused heat.

The coffee is brewed and heated to a temperature of around 200 degrees, for a duration of approximately 20 minutes, under constant control; this duration may vary depending on the origin of the coffee. Unlike industrial techniques, this approach allows slow and even cooking while allowing the coffee to develop gently.

When the coffee is roasted, it is evacuated into a collector where it is brewed and cooled by cold air so as to stop the cooking. Once cooled,the coffee must be stored for 72 hours in a damper to allow its degassing.