Making a Case for Dark Roast | Extra Shot Ep. 10

Episode Summary

In this insightful audio blog, Mike delves into the evolving trends in coffee roasting, focusing on the surprising underrepresentation of dark roasts in the specialty coffee market. He discusses compelling data from the National Coffee Association, which indicates a significant preference for dark roasts among consumers, particularly those aged 40 and above. Mike advocates for specialty coffee roasters to expand their offerings by including a dark roast option to meet consumer demand.

Episode Notes

• The lack of dark roast options in the specialty coffee sector is surprising.
• 35% of consumers reported a preference for dark roast coffee, compared to only 12% for light roasts.
• Consumer coffee preferences change notably after the age of 40.
• Older demographics show a higher consumption of dark roast coffee.
• Specialty coffee roasters can enhance their business growth by offering dark roast selections.
• Expert roasting techniques are crucial for producing high-quality dark roasts.
• The coffee industry has seen a notable shift towards lighter roasts in recent years.
• Understanding consumer coffee preferences can lead to informed business strategies.

Notes from the National Drinking Trends Data from the National Coffee Association

If you’re a coffee professional of a certain age, you’ve likely had this experience while gathering with other coffee professionals of a certain age (or CPCA’s) over the last 10 years.

One of your fellow CPCA’s will say something like, “I had a cup of coffee the other day over at such and such and the roast was so damn light I couldn’t even finish the cup.”

And with that, the flood gates open to a slew of comments:

Sour. Like chewing on grass. A roll in the hay. Acid bath. Get off my lawn.

After the Statler and Waldorf moment fades, the conversation turns to puzzlement, but not over the presence of so much light roast coffee–if that’s what you understand your customers want, then by all means give it to them. The puzzlement is over the utter absence of a dark roast option at many specialty coffee roasters. Some roasters don’t even offer what would be traditionally considered a medium roast.

That is to say: The complaint among the curmudgeonly is not really about the dominance of what we might consider ultralight roast coffee. Our grumpy guts are complaining about the rarity of fresh and properly roasted coffee at something beyond traditional full-city, perhaps Agtron #45 or darker. And more often than not, when we do find a relatively fresh French Roast, it’s just burnt coffee, and/or the green coffee was just not that good to begin with. It’s almost like few specialty coffee roasters believe dark roasts have a place, and even if they do, the skill of roasting darker is being lost. 

I believe a true and proper dark roast should be offered by every specialty coffee roaster with a growing wholesale business, not because you’re hurting my feelings when you don’t (you are) but because I think it makes good business sense if you want to keep growing. 

Exhibit A: The Spring 2025 National Drinking Trends Data from the National Coffee Association (NCA), page 43 “Coffee Roast Consumed Yesterday.”

The survey question is “What was the roast of this coffee/coffee beverage you had yesterday?” The results are broken down into totals, age groups, and regions. I’m not going to talk about regions because there’s not much to say there except that it appears we here in the northeast are more likely by a not insignificant degree to understand what it is we are drinking than are coffee drinkers in other other parts of the country. So neener neener.

First, the totals:

63% of coffee drinkers believe they had a medium roast.

35% believe they had a dark roast.

12% believe they had a light roast

And 11% admit they just don’t know. 

The mathematicians will note that these numbers do not add up to 100 but that’s because some people drank more than one type of roast the previous day so the survey allows more than one answer.

Okay, before we do any drilling down, let’s clear up some of the fuzziness, none of which is so fuzzy as to dismiss the fact that only 12% of coffee drinkers report having a light roasted coffee the day before.

One might be tempted to think that more than 11% of coffee drinkers just simply don’t know what kind of roast they are drinking and default to answering medium roast because it seems the most likely to be true. I concede this might be the case but suggest that if the absolute truth were known the impact on the results would be de minimis because, consider this, according to the same NCA survey, 82% of coffee is consumed in the home, and because of how the questions are phrased, that doesn’t include coffee that was prepared at home but consumed elsewhere, like in the car or at work. The point being that presumably, in most cases, we know what we are buying and preparing at home.

But maybe some of the 35% who report drinking dark roast were actually drinking medium roast. Perhaps. And I suppose then that it is just as likely that some people who report drinking medium roast were actually drinking a dark roast. 

In any case, setting aside what fuzziness may exist around the edges of medium roast and the fact that respondents are self-reporting, the wide disparity between those who report drinking dark (35%) and those who report drinking light roast (a mere 12%) cannot be easily dismissed. And we haven't even gotten to the good part yet. For me and my CPCA friends, the really interesting data is found in the age groups. 

First, let’s get the 63% medium roast out of the way because those numbers are basically the same as the total across all age groups. 65% of ages 18-24 report drinking medium roast, 62% of ages 25-39, 63% of ages 40-59, and 64% of the 60+, where, full disclosure, I can be found. You gotta love how they give up on providing age ranges at 60 so it’s just 60 to death I guess. 

Nothing really to report among the 11% who answered “I don’t know” except to say that ages 18-24 seem a little more oblivious to roast levels, 15% saying they don’t know what they were drinking. Presumably, this might be because more people in this age group are drinking whatever is available or served to them. Conversely, only 7% of those ages 40-59 don’t know what type of roast they are drinking…and I’ll bet 48% of those who do know would be happy to explain it to you. 

Now onto the good stuff, dark roast vs light roast. 

Let’s just review the raw numbers first, without comment…if I can help it.

Ages 18-24: 25% had a dark roast and 23% had a light roast.

Ages 25-39: 39% had a dark roast and 19% had a light roast.

Ages 40-59: 40% had a dark roast and 7% had a light roast. 

Ages 60-death: 29% had a dark roast and 8% had a light roast.

Even if we stop right there it is perhaps already obvious that there are potential wins and no losses in terms of consumer preference to adding a darker roast to your offerings. But let’s take a moment to beat an empty pinata. 

33% of those under 40 report drinking a light roast while only 15% of those over 40 report drinking a light roast. There is a dramatic drop in reported light roast consumption after age 40. 

At the same time, 64% of those under 40 report drinking a dark roast and 69% of those over 40 report drinking a dark roast. More coffee drinkers, whatever their age, consider dark roast an option than consider light roast an option. Even for coffee drinkers ages 18-24, it’s a virtual tie between light roast and dark roast.

Wait a minute, you say, a 45 year old coffee drinker was maybe 30 years old when light roast started to become a thing (I know I know I know, give or take whatever) so their roast preferences had already been dictated by an industry that was arguably founded on fetishing dark roasts so they never had an opportunity to appreciate the many nuances of lighter roast coffee.

To which I say, maybe and so what? You’re just going to leave them out there to buy coffee from someone who is not you? That’s an awful lot of business to leave sitting on the table. 

Once upon a time, ultra-light roasts may have been a differentiating factor in an increasingly competitive market. Now light roasts are an also ran in an even more competitive market. I’m not saying we need a pendulum swing here, just an extra pendulum.

Good green coffee, skillfully roasted past full-city and beyond but not burnt and sold fresh.  Once upon a time, in specialty coffee, this was as common as seagulls in Sarasota. I’m not saying they are unicorns now, but almost when it comes to high quality. Aging paletes are finding their dark roasts somewhere. Why not from you?