coffee should be
roasted. In the United States, there are demands for all degrees; from
the light roast, in favor in England, to the extremely dark roast in
vogue in France, Italy, Brazil, Turkey, and in the producing countries.
The North American trade recognizes these different roasts: light,
cinnamon, medium, high, city, full city, French, and Italian. The city
roast is a dark bean, while full city is a few degrees darker. In the
French roast, the bean is cooked until the natural oil appears on the
surface; and in the Italian, it is roasted to the point of actual
carbonization, so that it can be easily powdered. Germany likes a roast
similar to the French type; while Scandinavia prefers the high Italian
roast.

In the United States, the lighter roast is favored on the Pacific coast;
the darkest, in the South; and a medium-colored roast, in the Eastern
states. The cinnamon roast is most favored by the trade in Boston.

While coffee roasting in the United States usually takes from fifteen to
thirty minutes, depending on the fuel and the machine employed,
manufacturers of gas machines on the German market claim to roast it in
superior fashion in from three and a half to ten minutes.[326] This
subject is discussed more in detail in chapter XXXIV.

Coffee loses weight during the roasting process, the loss varying
according to the degree of roasting and the nature of the bean. Coffee
roasters figure, however, that the average loss is sixteen percent of
the weight of the green bean. It has been estimated that one hundred
pounds of coffee in the cherry produces twenty-five pounds in the
parchment; that one hundred pounds in parchment produces eighty-four
pounds of cleaned coffee; and that one hundred pounds of cleaned coffee
produces eighty-four pounds roasted.

[Illustration: JUMBO COFFEE ROASTER, IN THE ARBUCKLE COFFEE-ROASTING
PLANT, NEW YORK

There are four of these machines. The cylinders are twelve feet in
diameter, six feet deep, and can roast 5,000 pounds of coffee every
half-hour. The hard-coal brick furnace is seen at the left, from which a
blower forces the heated air through a pipe into the revolving cylinder
of coffee. The coffee is fed from above and is emptied into the cooling
pans beneath]

[Illustration: AN EIGHT-CYLINDER GAS COFFEE-ROASTING PLANT

A view of Reid, Murdoch & Co.'s roasting room, Chicago, equipped with
Monitor machines]

During the roasting process the coffee undergoes a great chemi