Light, Medium or Dark Roast: What's Actually the Difference?

I like it strong, so I always go dark roast. I hear a version of this most weeks, and it's one of the most common assumptions in coffee, and also one of the most wrong. Roast level barely touches strength. What it actually changes is flavour, and the difference is bigger than most people realise.

Roast level and strength aren't really related

Strength comes down to how much coffee you use, your brew ratio and your method, not how dark the beans look. If anything, light roast coffee tends to hold onto slightly more caffeine by weight than dark roast, since caffeine breaks down a little further the longer beans sit in the roaster.

What roast level does change

Light roast spends the least time in the roaster, so it holds onto most of the bean's original character. That's where you get brighter acidity and more floral, fruity, tea-like notes, and it's why a good single origin gets to actually show off where it's from. Medium roast sits in the middle, still carrying some of that original character but balanced against a bit more body and natural sweetness from caramelisation, which is roughly where most everyday specialty coffee lands. Dark roast spends the longest in the roaster and develops deep, smoky, bittersweet flavour, dark chocolate, toasted nut, a bit of char. The tradeoff is that most of the bean's original character gets roasted away and replaced with roast flavour itself, which is largely why a lot of dark roast coffee tastes fairly similar no matter where the bean actually came from.

So which one's actually right for you

It comes down to what you want from the cup, not how strong you think you like your coffee. If you want to genuinely taste where the coffee is from, with bright, distinct, specific notes, go lighter. If you want something well rounded and easy for every day, medium is usually the sweet spot. And if you want deep, bittersweet and chocolatey, and you don't mind less of the origin coming through, dark roast is your lane, you're just trading origin character for roast character, and that's a completely fair trade if it's what you actually enjoy.

Where our two sit

We roast to protect flavour rather than bury it, which is the whole reason you get notes like mandarin and marzipan in Lekker Brew, and redcurrant and orange zest in Bliksem Brew. Roast either of those properly dark and those notes just disappear under smoke and char, which would rather defeat the point of sourcing a good bean in the first place.

Not sure which suits you? Browse both, or grab our bundle and work it out for yourself.