INeedCoffee Roast Color Chart (INeedCoffee.com)

INeedCoffee Roast Color Chart

Professional coffee roasters will often use a color chart put out by the Speciality Coffee Association of America (S.C.A.A.) in order to define their roast color levels. The chart is called the "SCAA/Agtron Roast Color Classification System", which includes high resolution color tiles. The kit runs $290 and can be purchased on their web site. Most home roasters have better things to spend their money on, namely more coffee beans. But, like professional roasters, they also need to be able to articulate roast color levels to other roasters or for their own roasting logs. In the article, Coffee Roasts: Notes from a Non-Roaster we learned using common terms can be problematic. So I decided to make a web color chart using seven batches of distinctly roasted coffee.

Shortcomings

Viewing distinct roast colors is not ideal for a computer monitor. Everyone has different numbers of colors viewable on their screen and their brightness levels might vary as well. The colors you see on your screen may vary slightly from what I see. With that said, below is a "poor man's" coffee roast color chart. This is not a replacement for the SCAA chart. The SCAA chart is much more specific, and there are far more than seven different colors of roasts represented on it. This chart has only seven levels. Despite the display differences of monitors, you should be able to clearly grasp the roast color progression. In cases where a color isn't defined, roasters can use ½ values (Example: Level 3 ½).

Practical Uses

Home roasting logs or journals. Important for duplicating blends.
When roasting for someone else. (Example: "Dad told me he likes his coffee roasted to Level 5.")
Combining color information with time to detect faulty roasting equipment. (Example: It took 8 minutes to hit Level 2 using a ....)