Specific flavor faults that come from how a coffee was roasted, not from the green bean itself. Recognizable by their consistency: every bag from a roaster who's making the same mistake will share the same defect, no matter the origin.
The four common ones
Baked. Heat applied too gently for too long. The bean reaches the right colour but goes through development without enough energy. The cup tastes flat, papery, hollow — like the coffee can't quite land a flavor. No clear sweetness, no clear acidity.
Underdeveloped. The opposite problem: not enough total heat, or roast pulled too soon after first crack. The cup tastes grassy, vegetal, raw — green bean character that should have been transformed by the roast.
Scorched. Bean surface burned by direct contact with hot drum walls before the inside has caught up. Black spots on the bean (different from the natural quaker discoloration) and an ashy, charred edge to the cup, especially in the finish.
Tipped. Tips of the bean burned by too-aggressive early heat. Look for darker, almost black bean tips. The cup carries a thin acrid character.
Why specialty roasters obsess over this
A coffee that arrived from origin tasting like blueberries should brew like blueberries. A baked or tipped roast erases that — the roaster has overwritten the bean. Specialty roasting at its core is the discipline of not erasing: applying just enough heat to transform green character into cup character without imposing the roaster's signature on top.
If a coffee tastes wrong across multiple recipes, multiple grinders, and the bag is fresh, the defect is upstream of you.