Fall’s Perfect Pour: The Medium Roast Guide
September in New York is arguably the best month. The streets get less humid, training for the New York Marathon gets a little easier, it's still warm enough to enjoy Coney Island, the trees are still lush, and the breeze at night beats the AC every time. The air changes and Q4 hasn't gotten out of hand just yet. Fall in New York is about appreciating what we've got while we've got it - slowing down and savoring the day and savoring your morning ritual.
Medium roast is where we're landing this fall. Spring is light roast season: florals, bright pops of color, a little extra zing to pull us out of hibernation. Winter calls for the richest, thickest cup we can muster. But fall? Fall is our Goldilocks season. Fall calls for that "just right" roast.
The Medium Roast
Coffee flavor is largely the product of two chemical processes that compete during roasting. The Maillard reaction - named after French chemist Louis-Camille Maillard, who first described it in 1912, and the same process that browns bread and builds a crust on seared meat - begins around 302°F, where amino acids and reducing sugars break down and recombine into hundreds of new flavor compounds: nuttiness, caramel, toasted grain, depth. Caramelization follows, adding sweetness and body. Both of these are what people generally mean when they describe a coffee as "developed." But the longer a bean stays in the drum, the more its original character gets overwritten - the acidity softens, the fruit notes flatten, and what you're tasting is increasingly the roast rather than the origin.
Medium roast hits between 410°F and 428°F. That's the window where Maillard development is present, caramelization has started, and the bean's inherent characteristics - the brightness, the varietal notes, the origin - still have a voice. It's not a compromise between light and dark. It's a different outcome, one that requires more precision to pull off because the margin is narrower.
How We're Brewing
We’ve been hooked on Hario’s pour over sets recently; they provide a clean crisp controlled way to enjoy the nuances of a medium roast. We also wrote up a separate guide linked here on getting the most out of these coffees that way.
The Collection
Brazil - Pecan, almond, milk chocolate. Alta Mogiana, sun-dried, smallholder farms. Our own description: "not too heavy, not too light, not too dark and not too bright." We mean it.
Colombia Tolima - Chocolate, pecan, stone fruit. From Planadas, at elevation. Clean, balanced, works any time of day.
Guatemala Huehuetenango - Cocoa, blackberry, green apple, toasted almonds. From CODECH cooperatives in one of Guatemala's most distinct growing regions. More texture and range than the others on this list.
Nicaragua Prodecoop - Milk chocolate, apple, brown sugar. Harvested from over 2,300 small-scale farmers through PRODECOOP. Drinks like a blend despite being a single origin.
Mocha Java - Butterscotch, peach, Yoo-hoo. Indonesian body paired with East African washed coffee brightness, roasted separately and blended. One of the oldest blend styles in coffee for a reason.
Java Mocha - Berry, dark chocolate, honey. Ethiopian naturals and Sumatran beans from Aceh. Our best-selling blend since 2009. Smoky chocolate, blueberry, a fullness that holds up.
Shop the fall collection. They're just right for the season.