For real though, light roasts and a couple different beans and you'll really be able to taste the differences. I'm not talking subtle either. There will be some you hate, some you love and some that make you go "wait! That's coffee?"
you are correct that you might like the taste of dark roasted coffee as a personal preference, but that's not a "quality" quality, it's a taste preference. But you can make that strong dark coffee out of virtually any beans, just roast them to near death, it doesn't matter what you start with. Like chocolatey notes? you're in luck! that's called Brazilian coffee, and it's really really cheap to buy the beans.
You may not like more lightly roasted tea-like coffee flavors, but they have more distinct differences, fruit notes, etc, that you would easily be able to taste and differentiate between, even if it's not your preference.
being a barrista gives you a leg up on knowing about the coffee you tried regularly, but not on the coffee you haven't, and it takes a substantial amount of time to develop a palate, as with wine tasting.
we used to have two different guest blends every week at one of the coffee shops I used to work at. So I've tasted a lot of different varieties of coffee. I prefer dark roasted coffee.
And no, you can't make what I'm talking about out of 'virtually any beans'. You can make burnt, shit coffee out of any beans. They are different things.
Just because you have a preference for light fruity coffee does not mean you get to determine what is 'quality' for the rest of us.
dark roasting coffee decreases the subtle differences between beans. The more you roast, the more the aromatics disappear. full stop, theres no way around it. You are not going to buy the most expensive coffees to dark roast unless you are a fool. But as you say, there are differences between heavily roasted beans, as an example I mentioned, some might have chocalate notes.
I don't agree that light roasts are the only way to taste the real flavor of coffee. Both the bean and the roast are components of the flavor, and the lighter roasts just push the slider more toward the side of tasting the bean, at the expense of the roast. Often, for my taste, the result is too acidic and sour, and often really inconsistent.
The reason to roast coffee to different levels is because it brings out different flavors at every level. The right level of roasting will depend on the person, and certainly on the bean: there is no One True Way that results in "the flavor of coffee". That's why some roasters are better than others, and why roasting machines don't just have one big button that says "light roast".
The idea of buying expensive coffee is to taste the coffee, not the cheap sugar, milk or chocolate.
Or maybe it won't. I personally really dislike whiskey. And I'm Irish, I've tried a lot of good whiskeys. Still tastes bad to me.
Roasting to a higher level has been popular historically because it can cover up all sorts of faults, but still give a consistent character. Most of us grow up only tasting that.
But find a high quality lightly roasted specialty coffee, or even roast your own beans... and there's so many nuances there that are missed when clobbered with a high roast level.
So yes, I want my coffee to taste like coffee too. Like the coffee berry.
Enjoy your swill.