Hi there!
I’m Brian Kuo. On the Internet, people know me as BK. As a coffee nerd, my main goal for minmax is to share coffee roasted consistently in a clean, extremely light style I couldn’t find elsewhere in the US with other coffee nerds.
Why the name minmax?
In gaming, to minmax means to optimize a build to prioritize and maximize your strongest abilities and to put as few points as possible toward everything else.
I thought the term described what I was trying to do with this project: to focus on roasting the best coffee possible and to keep everything else short, simple, functional, and to the point.
Roast profiles
Nordic Light Roast:
The default roast profile, aimed at highlighting the acidity of a coffee, with sweetness and some body providing balance to the cup. I try to roast coffees in this style to avoid bitterness and roastiness as much as possible, but those flavors might appear in some coffees roasted in this style.
French Roast:
The French roast profile is the lightest roasted profile on offer. This style of roast aims to be one of the lightest you can buy from a specialty roaster in the world, aiming to only be roasted enough to avoid most of the astringent, grainy or vegetal tasting notes. This roast style produces the most florality and aroma while having very little bitterness, while including a balance between acidity and sweetness. It might not be for everyone, but it’s what I personally prefer, and sharing this style of roast is the reason minmax exists.
You might ask, why is the lightest roast called French Roast? Because I learned about and fell in love with coffee like this from a French guy in Paris and spent the next few years trying to spin my own version of it, of course. What else was I supposed to call it?
Please note that I may offer certain coffees in only one roast style or the other, based on my judgment on how the coffee tastes.