title_body: "Speed Roasting" from Coffee Tonya: Is it just as good?
upvoted_answer: Roast times can significantly affect coffee flavors, and a 2 minute roast profile is concerning.  While I cannot say I am familiar with the process they are using, I do know a decent amount about the chemistry involved when you are roasting a coffee bean.  My biggest concern would be internal development of the coffee bean.
  
  To give you a brief run-down of roasting, without spending hours on this post..
  
  You typically have two types of heat in roasting, conductive and convective.  There are disagreements on how best to apply heat to a coffee bean, but the traditional understanding is you apply conductive heat early in the roast and convective at the end.  The reason is because if you do not dehydrate the internal bean, you will get an insulating barrier of zero moisture encapsulating the moist interior of the bean that will result in underdeveloped flavors (sour, acidic)
  
  If you apply too much convective heat early on, then this will typically happen.  If you apply too much conductive heat, you usually get what is called tipping which can be seen on the ends of beans as a small black spot where the plant would actually sprout had the bean been planted (this is a natural weak spot in the cellular structure that allows the plant to sprout).
  
  To roast a coffee bean from room temp to ~400F give or take 25 degrees in 2 minutes would require an average rate of rise (RoR) of 115 degree / minute.  To give you an idea of the difference, The highest RoR I typically roast at is about 36 RoR and maybe an average RoR of 15 or 20.
  
  My initial reaction to application of heat so quickly to a coffee bean would be that you would get over-roasted on the outside with possible tipping, and an under roasted interior resulting in sourness.
  
  I know that timing on airbed roasters is different from traditional drum roasters, but I've never heard of them doing 2 minute roasts either so I am guessing this is a proprietary roasting system of some sort.  That being said, if you want a pretty in depth discussion on how roast times affect flavor you can check out Modulating the Flavor Profile of Coffee by Rob Hoos.  He gives a very thorough break down of what happens when you trim as little as 20 seconds off a given segment of a roast profile and how that affects the flavors in coffee.
  
  (btw, if I deviate from my desired roast level by more than 45 seconds, the beans usually end up in the trash can because I refuse to sell them)