Really Tasting your Coffee

Of course you know how to taste coffee. But do you know how to precisely describe it to someone else? Can you distinguish characteristics between different varieties, or brewing methods? Roasters use a rather large lexicon of terms to describe the coffee experience. This is a little introduction.

Coffee is a very complex beverage. There are well over 800 aromatics compounds in roasted beans that can affect the flavor, aroma and impression of a cup. It wouldn’t be helpful for us to use terms like the quantity of phenolic compounds or chlorogenic acids, or the concentration of 2,2′-methylene-bis-furan. Instead, we choose to use general terms like acidity, sweetness or toasty. And we could delve into each of those general terms as well, to identify the type of acidity – bright, lemony, bitter – and so on. In addition to taste, we can also use our lexicon of terms to describe the aroma, body and finish of each cup. All these together can accurately communicate our experience with a particular coffee.

Often, roasters are tasting a number of coffee samples side-by-side (which you should totally try, btw). To keep track of their impressions, they often use a form like this:

It’s fairly simple to use, and helps compare one sample with another. However, we all have different tastes, so 10 different people will evaluate a cup of coffee 10 different ways. Despite that, it is possible to come to a general consensus among the tasters, and finally a description is added to a coffee product for sale. Just know that your impressions might be slightly different. Why not download a copy of the form (Google Doc or pdf) and try it yourself?

When describing things like aroma, flavor and acidity, we’ve found it helpful to use a chart like this one:

It’s one that’s been developed by professional tasters at the Specialty Coffee Association and World Coffee Research. (you can buy a po$ster here) The lexicon moves from the center (general) outward (more specific). It’s fun to see how your impressions match up with your roaster’s impressions!

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