American tastes in coffee. Java. Joe. Dark roast. Light roast. And the battle for American taste buds.

Coffee, Cup and Beans. (JcOlivera.com/Flickr)

Back in the day in the USA, coffee was coffee – just pour it. Maxwell House, Folgers in your cup. Just give us the joe. And a whole lot of coffee still runs just that way. But then came the dark roast revolution. Starbucks, riding it in a huge way. Deep, bold dark roast as the hipster hallmark. The new “must have” coffee.

But American tastes in coffee run wider than that. A lot of vendors are now pushing light roast again. Blech to the bold, they say. Don’t burn the beans. Light will wake you up just as well, and with more flavors.

This hour, On Point: What we want in our java. Our joe.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Katy McLaughlin, Special Writer for the Wall Street Journal. Her article, “The Hot Blonde in the Coffee Shop” appeared this week.

Ted Lingle, Executive Director of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), a non-profit trade association. He is also co-founder of the Coffee Quality Institute, where he teaches coffee brewers.

Jamie van Schyndel, owner and head roaster at Barismo, an independent coffee roaster in Arlington, Massachusetts.

From Tom's Reading List

The Wall Street Journal "After years of convincing the nation's coffee drinkers that dark-roasted brews are the classiest thing to fill a mug or takeout cup, Starbucks, Peet's, and a new wave of high-end chains are rolling out the exact opposite: light-roasted coffee.'"