French Roast Coffee

In 2003, when Zingerman’s Coffee Company first started roasting coffee, small, specialty coffee roasters were few and far between. A decade ago, specialty coffee was beginning to find a foothold, but it was still a nerdy, niche product with a limited audience. Today, the story has changed. Even a small town is likely to have at least a couple of offbeat coffee shops serving locally roasted brews. (In the rural town of 30,000 I call home, we have four.) A big city may have dozens of independent coffee roasters.

Across the nation, specialty coffee follows certain trends.

As specialty coffee has become more ubiquitous, in many cases it’s also become more generic. Many roasters make similar boasts: they source directly from small growers, sharing details like the name of the farms or farmers, the type of coffee beans grown, and the processing methods. That transparency is great, and it’s wonderful to see the hard work of coffee growers celebrated. But for all the specificity, it’s often hard for someone who isn’t a professional coffee cupper to tell the difference between one brew and another. These days, specialty coffee tends to be synonymous with lightly roasted beans that produce highly acidic, fruity brewed coffee. If jammy coffee isn’t your jam, you may be stuck with the one token dark roast that a shop offers.

Zingerman’s Coffee Company has never been about the trends.

While the specialty coffee landscape around Zingerman’s Coffee Company has changed significantly in its 21 years in business, the operation here in Ann Arbor has largely remained the same. That consistency plays out in many ways. For one, from the beginning, the Zingerman’s roasting crew have selected a wide range of beans, with a few offerings hitting lighter, medium, and darker roast profiles. As flavor fads have come and gone, the Zingerman’s crew have continued serving a range of tastes.

Behind that range of flavors, we have long standing relationships with many of the folks who grow our coffees. While other shops may not have much to share about a grower beyond their name and a photo or two, we focus on building long-term relationships with our growers. We’ve sold coffee from Hacienda Miramonte in Costa Rica every year for a decade. It’s been even longer since we started working with the DaTerra Estate in Brazil. Over those years of partnership, we’ve traveled down to visit the estates—and they’ve come up to visit us in Ann Arbor, too. Together, we’ve worked on experimental microlots to discover the impacts of very specific terroirs. We’ve tried out different processing methods to tease new flavors out of coffees. These aren’t the kinds of partnerships that spring up overnight. Our long, strong relationships have given us deeper understanding of the coffees, and better access to exceptional beans.

A decade from now, I can’t predict how the specialty coffee market will have shifted. But I can bet that the coffees from Zingerman’s Coffee Company will continue to produce excellent, easy to love brews.

If you brew the exact same coffee—same origin, same roasting—with different methods, the flavor of the drink can be dramatically different. Take Zingerman’s Coffee Company’s Espresso Blend No. 1. As you might guess from the name, this blend of beans from the Daterra Estate in Brazil was developed with espresso in mind, and it produces a great shot: rich with flavors of dark chocolate and a sweet nuttiness. But that doesn’t mean you have to prepare it as espresso. If you made it in a French press, the flavor becomes lighter and brighter, with notes of white cake, chestnut, and blood orange. Prepared in an aeropress the flavor changes again, now emphasizing creamy caramel notes with a hint of spice. And brewing the espresso blend in a Clever cup draws out toasty cocoa notes and a rich, full body. Brew the espresso blend in each of these four different ways and taste the four cups side by side, the differences are striking. None of these different brewing methods are “right” or “wrong”—at the end of the day, the only taste that counts is yours, and whichever way you like your coffee is the right way.

Six superior home brewing methods.

You could use your regular brewing method to make any Zingerman’s coffee at home. You’d make yourself an excellent cup of coffee. Try a different method, and you’ll create different flavors. Here are my favorite brew and coffee combos. Each brings a coarser- or finer-ground coffee in touch with hot water and pressure in a slightly different way. Try some variations at Zingerman’s Coffee Company’s cafe in Ann Arbor—it’s an amazing experience. Or stay home and check out all the possibilities on our Big Brew Board.

1. Roadhouse Joe Coffee brewed in an automatic drip pot
Our perennial best-selling coffee, the Roadhouse Joe blend is a mix of Papua New Guinean, Costa Rican, Indian and Brazilian Peaberry beans. We’ve served it every day alongside breakfast (and brunch, and lunch, and dinner) at Zingerman’s Roadhouse restaurant for over a decade. Brewed in a standard automatic drip machine (like the kind most of us have on our kitchen counters at home), it’s nutty and balanced.

2. Espresso Blend No. 1 prepared as espresso
Made from a blend of coffee varietals all grown on the Daterra Estate in Brazil, our house espresso blend is especially great as espresso—luxuriously thick crema, with flavors of dark chocolate and sweet nuts—but it’s great brewed just about any other way, too.

3. Ethiopian Guji Coffee brewed in a press pot
Ethiopian coffees often have intensely fruity flavors, almost like biting into a handful of juicy berries. This coffee, from Ethiopia’s Oromia region, is no exception. Brewed in a press pot (also called a French press), the flavor is so light and bright it’s almost tea like, with acidic notes of lemon and blueberry.

4. Sumatra Mandheling Coffee brewed as a pourover
Sumatran coffees tend to be on the full-bodied, dark, earthy, wild end of the coffee flavor spectrum. When this one from the Jegarang Region of Indonesia is made as a manual pourover—which is basically drip coffee made by hand—those deep, earthy notes find balance with hints of butterscotch, almond, pecan, and banana.

5. Uganda Rwenzori Coffee brewed with an aeropress
The beans are handpicked, then undergo a dry, “natural” processing, whereby the coffee cherries are dried for 18-20 days with the fruit of the cherry intact around the coffee “bean” seed. Drying the beans with the fruit intact can give the coffee beans a notably fruity flavor. Brewing it with an aeropress—a 21st-century take on a French press that uses pressure to quickly brew a single smooth, clean cup—particularly emphasizes those bright, fruity flavors.

6. Costa Rica Hacienda Miramonte Coffee brewed with a syphon
At the peak of the season, the most experienced pickers harvest the ripest coffee cherries just for us from a micro-lot on the Hacienda Miramonte estate. When brewed using a syphon—the science-experimenty looking brew equipment seen at some specialty coffee shops and the occasional serious coffee-lover’s home—the flavors are rich and complex with a pleasant toffee note.

Why are dark coffees confused with strong coffees? This is one of the most common misperceptions in the coffee world and the starting point for frequent conversations with customers. When someone is browsing Zingerman’s coffees for the first time they often ask, “Which is your darkest coffee? I like strong coffees.”

This question really hits on two very different, often confused, aspects of brewed coffee: roast color and brew strength. Roast color does not necessarily affect how strong a coffee tastes. Brew strength will always affect how strong it tastes.

Roast color affects what flavors you taste but not necessarily how much of them you taste. In very dark roasted coffees, the pleasant characteristics of the bean – sweet, floral notes and other aromas – are burned away. They are replaced by bitter components, often a charred flavor. We’re sensitive to those bitter flavors and sometimes mistake them for strength. Dark coffees aren’t necessarily stronger, though. They’re just darker.

It’s brew strength that really makes a coffee intense. Chances are, when you say you like strong coffee, this is what you mean. Technically brew strength is a measure of dissolved coffee solids in your cup. A strong coffee is one with more solids.

A lot of formal research has gone into the measurement of “optimal strength” coffees. Coffee experts will often tell us how much ground coffee we should have for how much water. To some extent, these guidelines are helpful. Too much coffee will start to taste bitter. Too little may taste pleasant but thin or watery, lacking body. I have my own personal opinions and preferences for brew strength. My professional opinion is that nearly everyone errs on the side of too little coffee. But in the end it’s your taste that counts, so find a brew strength that works for you.