LOS ANGELES - Move over, dark-roasted blends. There??s a new blonde in town, and she??s making in-roads in the coffee business, the Wall Street Journal reports. Light-roasted coffee debuted at Starbucks last month, with Peet??s Coffee & Tea rolling out two medium-roasted blends in March.

Starbucks?? Blonde Roast has been available at its stores, with a bagged version hitting the grocery stores this week. Other upscale, independent coffee cafes, such as Blue Bottle Co., Four Barrel Coffee, Handsome Coffee Roasters and Intelligentsia Coffee, stock only light-roasted coffee, eschewing dark blends completely.

With coffee doing well overall, the U.S. recession has spurred companies to launch new products, such as light roasts, to bring in new customers. Light-roasted coffee had no place when the specialty coffee craze ignited two decades ago. Americans considered dark roasts as more sophisticated.

But all that may be changing as high-end roasters are advocating a lighter roast as a way to bring out the beans?? delicate flavors. "When it is dark, you taste charcoal, the same charcoal that's on a piece of toast," said Jeremy Tooker, who owns Four Barrel. With light roasting, "we're trying to show you the reasons why you bought the coffee."

Not that Starbucks and other coffee shops are going to kick dark roasts to the curb anytime soon. "While it is true you can roast a coffee to the point that you annihilate the flavor if you don't do it correctly, our approach is to balance the origin with the flavor of the roast" said Andrew Linnemann, Starbucks director of coffee quality. The company plans to sell its Blonde Roast alongside is many popular dark roast blends.