LMSC Morning all. We don’t really get enquiries about altitude, no. You’re right in that beans grown at higher altitudes tend to be denser - although, this is not always the case, at least according to our own observations.
It might be more accurate to say that even when green beans arrive with us at a particular density, it doesn’t mean that they will necessarily retain that relatively high density through the roasting process and come out the roaster relatively dense.
It will presumably depend on a tonne of different variables, most of which are near impossible to track. Some things are easily measurable (moisture content for example), but things like water activity are harder to measure and probably more important in terms of how heat transfer from the roaster to the coffee will relate to increasing the solubility.
I think that processing methods (which are getting increasingly complex) also affect the process too but it’s hard ot say much with any certainty about that right now.
There must also be a myriad of other factors too - the genetic profile of the coffee, the weather during the growing/harvesting etc etc.
For me, altitude really just tells you that the coffee has got the potential to be good, not much else - in the sense that coffee grown at ‘too low’ altitudes can’t really be good regardless of all the other factors.