Palouse Coffee Club
What is medium roast?
Medium roast is coffee roasted past the first crack but stopped before the second, so the beans come out an even mid brown with little or no oil on the surface. It keeps some of the coffee's origin flavor and adds the sweetness of browned sugars, which is why medium roasts are described with words like chocolate and caramel.
What it tastes like
Our plan builder sums medium up as chocolate, caramel, easy every day. The caramel part has a basis in chemistry. Green coffee holds simple sugars, and once the water has cooked out during roasting, Wikipedia's roasting article explains, some of those sugars caramelize and create the caramel notes found in certain coffees.
Washington roasters describe their medium roasts in the same terms. Bluebeard Coffee Roasters in Tacoma calls its house style a balanced roast: developed enough for chocolate and caramel sweetness, light enough to keep the finer notes of high scoring coffees. Lighthouse Roasters in Fremont says its coffees share a thread of dark chocolate, heavy body and toffee sweetness.
Where medium sits in the roast
Roasters track two sounds. First crack comes at roughly 196 °C (385 °F), when escaping moisture makes the beans pop and swell. Second crack comes at roughly 224 °C (435 °F), when the bean structure turns brittle and fractures. Those figures come from Wikipedia's roasting article. A medium roast is dropped from the roaster somewhere in the gap between them.
Where exactly depends on the roaster. Words like light-medium, medium-dark and balanced all describe points inside that gap, and there is no shared industry scale on the bag yet: the Specialty Coffee Association lists its roast level test method, SCA-131, as still in development. So one roaster's medium can sit close to another's light. Read the tasting notes on the bag along with the roast word.
Medium roast vs light and dark
| Roast | Stops | What leads the cup | Washington example we list |
|---|---|---|---|
| Light | At or just after first crack | Origin: fruity, floral | Elm Coffee Roasters, Seattle |
| Medium | Between the two cracks | Balance: origin plus caramelized sweetness | Herkimer Coffee, Seattle |
| Dark | Near or into second crack | Roast: roasty, heavy | Zoka Coffee, Bellingham |
Washington roasters with medium roasts
Among the roasters we list, medium is the roast level tagged most. These local favorites tag medium roasts on their own shops, checked September 27, 2026:
- Herkimer Coffee, Seattle, tags its roasts medium; its lineup runs from a Drip Blend to single origins from Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil and Ethiopia.
- Bluebeard Coffee Roasters, Tacoma, calls its house style balanced, a medium; El Capitan is its everyday drip.
- Broadcast Coffee, Seattle, roasts mostly medium, with a few light roasts and one dark.
- Lighthouse Roasters, Seattle, publishes medium and dark roasts.
- Caffe Vita, Seattle, runs from light-medium through medium and medium-dark to dark.
- Fulcrum Coffee Roasters, Seattle, whose Silver Cup brand makes approachable medium blends in the Seattle tradition.
- Dillanos Coffee Roasters, Sumner, and Kuma Coffee, Seattle, both list medium roasts too.
We list these roasters as local favorites. A listing does not mean the roaster is part of the club. Herkimer has roasted in the same Phinney Ridge building as its first cafe since 2003; a bag from a shop like that keeps a neighborhood roastery busy. Why local roasters matter has more.
Choosing medium in the club
Set roast level to Medium in the plan builder. In the quiz, "Chocolate and nuts" picks medium. It pairs well with Blends, the roaster's steady house mix, and it is the safe pick for a gift when you do not know how someone drinks their coffee. Each box comes from a different independent Washington State roaster, $16.99 a bag. First bag free, you pay $7.99 shipping.
Related terms and sources
Related: light roast, dark roast, espresso roast, drip coffee, second crack, blend.
- Wikipedia: Coffee roasting (crack temperatures, caramelization)
- Specialty Coffee Association: Coffee standards (SCA-131 in development)
- Roaster roast levels and house styles: each roaster's own shop and story page, checked September 27, 2026.