As far as I know they're american, so you will have to draw your own conclusion on what that may mean wrt coffee roasting everywhere else in the world...FWIW I am not in favour of the WikiP descriptors. They are for the american market, but because its up there on the net in the WikiP for all to see, it becomes established as a world standard. But we here dont do it their way...do we? Roasters with little experience and or using imprecise roasting methods cant help get inconsistencies in the colour of the roasted coffee, and maybe that is why there seem to be so many different shades and descriptors in them...to cater for whatever anyone might drop out of their roasting plant. I believe you should be able to get away with.... a) light roast (eg german / greek / american / whatever, you know the colour) b) medium roast (eg northern Italian style) c) dark roast (eg southern italian / turkish / spanish, whatever, you know the colours....doesnt matter because they are all burnt) Any more than that in my honest opinion is not necessary.....EXCEPT where for example, someone is being asked to contract roast specific coffees to a specific colour spec. (given a specific supplied roast profile) for their specific use, which they are going to pay you for.... Then may I suggest the most appropriate scale to use is the Agtron scale....and bobs your uncle. That is the only time I use any form of colour scale. It is understood that I am roasting with high end professional equipment, but the point I am making is that even I dont use (and dont need to use) colour codes other than basically, light / medium / dark where any small variations within the three shades of colour are governed by the changes I make to the drop temp as a result of my cupping, and this is a dynamic thing that will change over time as the greens or environmental factors change. And of course to complicate matters and as stated by others, there are different roasting machines and techniques so you may all arrive at the same colour on anyones particular colour scale, but get quite a different cup anyway due to the different equipment and profiles used. In which case what good is such a detailed colour spec? What does it really mean? Lastly, for the types of coffee that people in this group appear to be roasting, I expect you would all be dropping your coffees out at somewhere around the medium roast colour, with small variation depending on your individual set ups, techniques, experience and the individual demands of your palates. As to "inventing" yet more roast colour scales, my question would be why reinvent the wheel when it already exists in one form or another and means so little (to me) anyway. My vote therefore is "please not another colour scale". The KISS principle rules.
