The coffee industry has several naming conventions for roasted coffee. Often coffee roasters and general coffee consumers use different terms.
Roaster terms like Nordic, Cinnamon, City, City+, Full City, Full City+, French Roast, Vienna Roast, and Italian Roast have pretty specific color grades associated with the roasted beans. As to the scientific process of roasting, these nomenclatures and color grades often relate to the “development” of the bean during roasting. Development is measured as the amount of time the beans are roasted once First Crack stage has started through the end of the roast as a percentage of total time in the roaster.
Consumer terms like Light Roast, Medium Roast, and Dark Roast simplify the scientific aspects of roasting and generalize the degree to which acidic (dryness), body, and roast/smokey are balanced in the final cup.
Our coffee bags use a sliding scale to provide some synergies between these terms. We consider the following during our roasting process. Others may use different benchmarks for their roasts.
Nordic Roast – a roast with very little development, and roast ceased before First Crack has completed
Cinnamon Roast is a very very light roast, roast ceased right after First Crack has completed
City is a very light roast, about 18-19% development
City + is a light roast, about 20-22% development
Full City is a medium roast, approximately 23-25% development
Full City+ is slightly more than medium roast, approximately 25-28% development, right on the cusp or has reached Second Crack
French Roast coffee is DARK Roasted, about 30-35% development, has just passed the Second Crack stage
Vienna Roast coffee is roasted darker than French Roast, about 35-40% development, Post Second Crack
Italian Roast coffee is charred and burned up pretty good in the roasting process. If you like burnt, ashy, smoked coffee this is the ticket.