How To Taste Specialty Coffee

HOW TO TASTE SPECIALTY COFFEE

'FLAVOR NOTES' are entirely subjective.

Coffee professionals draw upon a common language to facilitate communication between importers, roasters, and producers scattered across the globe.

The good news:

If you are not part of that chain, you are not beholden to the rigor of standardized flavors.

FRAGRANCE & AROMA

Smell and taste work in concert to produce the experience of flavor.

Fragrance refers to the smell of dry coffee grounds.

Aroma is the smell of the coffee when infused with hot water.

ACIDITY & BITTERNESS

“Bright” or “tart” when it’s good.

“Sour” or “bitter” when it’s not. "Astringent' is another common term.

Chlorogenic Acids give our coffee it's juice. Roasting and brewing break down CGA's and transform the nature of acidic compounds in the beans.

The best expressions of acidity contribute a liveliness and fruit character to a flavor profile. Usually reflected by a fruit or two in the flavor notes. These can help us understand the character of the acidity.

For example, ‘orange’ and ‘bergamot’ are common indicators of citric acidity, a common descriptor of washed Latin American coffees.

Think of biting into an orange and contrast that experience with biting a blueberry. No doubt, both are considered sweet fruits; but the character is surely different.

I typically use a natural process Ethiopian coffee to illustrate this comparison, a combination available in the Flagship Collection.

'SWEETNESS' IN COFFEE

Can coffee be sweet?

Sure. But it's complex. Literally.

Chlorogenic Acids are more complex compounds than the simple sugars we associate with the word.

So every reference to a 'sweet' flavor is drawing upon that taster's personal experience with that taste. Whether that be the grassy tartness of a strawberry or sharp bite of a lemon.

BODY

Tactile feeling of liquid in the mouth.

We often use other liquids as reference points when describing the body of a coffee.

Heavy-bodied coffee will often get a milk descriptor like ‘skim’, ‘whole’, or ‘heavy cream’. Common descriptors for light-bodied coffees are varieties of brewed ‘tea’, especially in East African origins. This represents the quantity of 'body' in that cup.

I like to use this time to think about chocolate notes as well. This is more of a qualitative assessment.

Is it sweet like ‘milk chocolate’; or bitter like ‘dark chocolate’ and ‘cacao nibs’?

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