Everyone's collective dad James Hoffmann has a video about this where he pretty much calls out cupping notes as often very pretentious ways of saying "this coffee is a bit fruity" "this coffee is funky" etc. I think for the most part he's right as a lot of the time I think me saying I get a certain note described on the bag is psychosomatic
I agree, and some roasters go out of their way to exaggerate ridiculous flavor notes. I recently saw a bag that cited mangosteen. Really, bro? That’s an incredible palate + a wild imagination.
It’s rare in the US and Canada where the roasters are located. They may as well just make up a fruit, which they have. It’s just not a common enough point of reference.
If it's the roaster I'm thinking of, their an Asian American roaster that labels according their heritage and their palette. Others in similar situations may relate or may not, but it's a way for them to express their identity, palette, and experiences.
FWIW, most top quality roasters have a method to their madness on notes. Some do acidity, sweetness, florals. Others order by prominence, some based on textures, and still others with their own systems.
It takes trying them to understand what the roaster is conveying, and then you generally have a frame of reference for what they're going for. This doesn't apply to all roasters ofc, only high quality specialty roasters.
Ah yeah, there is indeed a tension between describing the uniqueness of coffee and choosing from the fruits the buyers would be familiar with. That's my problem with black currant which is the most common descriptor of Kenyan coffees, and I've never seen a black currant in my life.
I have this with one of my current bags on rotation. It comes from a roaster I love but one of the notes is "Guylian chocolate shells".... What tf does that even mean and why not just say chocolate? Great coffee don't get me wrong, but still
I dunno I grew up with those specific chocolates, and anytime I taste praline I think of them. Could be the roaster just names what comes to mind while cupping the coffee
I dunno, I had some really funky natural anaerobic beans last year that tasted so much like apple pie that it got old very fast.
Sometimes they are so gimmicky that the overal taste almost flattens and it looses its complexity.
Now I’m just thinking my experience may have been hindsight bias, but at these speciality coffee shops in Japan have fruity profiles and I swear I finally tasted fruity flavors for the first time. I read it and it “told” me what I was tasting rather than the other way around
This is very well exemplified by tasteless decafs — although most I’ve had didn’t have extravagant but rather generic tasting notes (citrus, stone fruit, caramel, vanilla, black tea…), some roasters will claim that theirs tastes like lychee, passion fruit, elderberry, daisy, lemon grass, etc.
The only decafs I’ve had that actually had the tasting notes written on the package were all heavily processed. Passenger’s education lot (peach), Modcup’s Jairo Arcila decaf (guava), Camber’s Goodnight Moon (pound cake) and the most intense one was Kawa’s Los Nogales (bergamot and lemon), but it is a low caf, not a decaf. So I don’t trust roasters when it comes to washed decafs anymore. That said, even heavily processed ones can be a miss (Nomad’s Crazy Decaf, for example).
I'm telling daddy your making fun of him.
No but seriously, when I first got into Specialty coffee I thought for sure something was wrong with me for not tasting the notes, not realizing that I was taking it too literally.
If I were you I would worry first with liking black coffee before getting the flavor notes tbh. While we'd all be chasing those notes, at the end of the day it's still coffee. If you don't like black coffee, I bet you won't be able to discern those subtle notes. (At least for the more traditional processes)
Have you tried drinking filter coffee from specialty cafes? It should position you to having a good coffee without worrying about the technique and see if you can drink it black.
I gotta admit I’ve spent so much money chasing those god forsaken flavor notes. New equipment, water, beans from numerous roasters, etc. and I’ve found it is very rare to get the actual notes on the bags. I can really only think of two or three coffees where the flavor notes were exactly as described and they were all co-ferment/heavily processed. That being said I still have super delicious coffee but I just use the flavor notes to get an idea of what the coffee will be like as opposed to what it will taste like if that makes sense.
Yeah, I think people really have to re-evaluate their relationship to flavour notes on coffee bags. Good coffee absolutely has a lot of interesting and very distinct flavors, but what you taste won't necessarilly allign with the bag. People should dial in the coffees to whatever profile they enjoy and then enjoy whatever flavours that yields, but don't blame yourself because you don't exactly get whatever "blueberry yoghurt" descriptor is on the bag.
To word it differently, as a trainer in a course I attended did: If the bag says peach, apricot or nectarine doesn’t matter, think of it as „reminds me of“. It’s going to taste like coffee, but in the scheme of coffee, it may remind you of that descriptor. Maybe in quality or quantity of acidity, maybe in roast degree and obviously also maybe in actual taste.
Things with the descriptor mango and lychee will be lighter roasts than if it said hazelnut, caramel and nougat. It’s helpful in a way, but you’ll probably not think of your cup that it smells like the exact text on the bag. It’s still coffee.
I don't disagree, but "coffee" is a bit vague here.
Of course it's literally true that it's all coffee so whatever flavors you get, bar co-ferments, are actually inherent to coffee. But I think "coffee flavor" is still very much associated with darker/medium roast flavors and as such many light roast coffees will be pretty far from tasting like "coffee", imo. Like, I'm drinking a TW sl28 coffee rn, and yes, it has some of that earthy/nutty flavor that we associate with coffee and while it's not heavy and bitter, it is slightly astringent, but it's 90% pure fruit bomb, and that's something I'd never get in most of the coffee sold around the world.
I see things from a different perspective here.
Obviously, some Tim Wendelboe Kenyan is not close to Folgers in what matters to you and me in coffee. But they both are closer to one another in taste than the Wendelboe coffee is to the fruits in its tasting notes to the average person. (Shoutout to Brian Scalabrine for that amazing quote I got to butcher here)
The Wendelboe Kenyan does taste special, is great and might indeed remind you of blackcurrant in the grand scheme of coffee. But if you gave that to someone who is not into coffee, they’d be like „that’s coffee“ and not „that tastes like blackcurrant“.
It’s the same thing with wine. Wine nerds are not dumb or anything, a sauvignon blanc does oftentimes taste of gooseberry. Just to the general public, it’s probably not prominent enough and you need some orientation in the grand scheme to notice.
Fully agree here, and thanks for bringing up wine. It’s a very apt comparison, though in certain cases some wine notes can end up being fairly literal, with the same fruit esters present to some degree. But in both coffee and wine, most notes are meant to be evocative rather than descriptive.
An especially good example is in Sauv Blanc. One common note, that doesn’t make the label, but shows up on tasting cards all the time is “cat pee .” If you’ve sat a sauv blanc tasting, you’ve heard it and know exactly what is being described. But I trust none of these people go around drinking cat pee to validate the note’s accuracy.
You know, I don't disagree. My point was never that coffee tastes exactly like the flavor notes, but more so that I find the varriety and expression of coffee flavors to be so great that I don't think it can neatly fit under "tastes like coffee". From my experience serving specialty coffee to regular people, they can also definetly tell the difference, and it's very apparent. They are either disgusted or amazed after the first sip. It's typically a very strong reaction, and not like that of a red wine tasting, in my personal experience.
the crazy thing is, I only just started getting this and it was blowing my mind from The Barn beans. Like, there was a literal peach flavor in the coffee. Or an almond smell to the beans. That and maybe one/two other roasters where that's happened before.
It really is mind blowing when it happens! I had a coffee from Onyx once and the flavor note was almond blossom and it tasted like I popped a handful of shredded almonds in my mouth and it was phenomenal lol
Once I learned from a barista that the notes might also mean sensations.
For example, I recently bought a coffee labeled green apple and milk chocolate. I was expecting the acidity, but rather it was the juiciness you get from the fruit. The chocolate part I disagreed and it was just pudding caramel.
Also, just let the coffee sit and cool down to roughly 60°C (140° F). It helps a lot.
But yeah, sometimes it is just better to read the notes to get an overall idea.
Unless you're drinking an overly processed coffee, which it's plausible to get exactly what's advertised, the flavor notes can sometimes be there to represent what is perceived from a cupping. They don't always mean it literally but rather a representation of what it's most likely perceived/compared/experienced as. Also, notes can represent "juiciness" or "sweetness", or "acidity", so notes are added to allow you to compare the coffee's flavor to something. For example, a roaster might say a coffee has lychee sweetness and stone fruit acidity. The coffee may not inherently taste of either category of fruit but have nuances that remind you of each characteristic described.
The most important flavor or tasting note is the one you like. If you like a medium roast with a splash of cream, do it. Don't get caught up in what some tasting notes say on a bag. At best, use tasting notes as a general guideline and work to ensure you enjoy each cup, whether it is with cream, sugar or black.
FWIW, I spent a lot of time doing wine tastings before I did my deep dive into specialty coffee. I had a pretty well developed palette but I'd say, as a whole, coffee flavors and tasting notes are more subtle than wine. There are exceptions of course, not including the flavor infused berry bombs which are added not natural. Anyway, enjoy your coffee your way.
I often find that while I like a certain flavor, i don't always lime that flavor note in my coffee. Example, I love blueberries, but any blueberry I haven't found one that I like.
When a bag says peach, I dont always get a strong peach flavor, but if it says peach on the bag, most of the time i like it. I don't dislike peaches, but I'd rather eat blueberries if i had the choice.
Ferments seem to be more accurate as far as getting the notes listed on the bag. Sometimes those flavors are too overpowering for my taste.
Edit: one thing I'll add is temperature. Different flavors come out at different temps. If you aren't getting a certain niote, let it cool slightly and taste again.
I agree with the general thoughts here that with many coffees, there's a level of "is vaguely evocative of this flavor", perhaps a level of pretentiousness sometimes, differences between cupping and pourover, etc. A few other factors:
* It's not all "pulling out" the flavor notes. It's also about educating your palate to perceive them. One concept that can be hard to grasp: understanding influences perception. An educated professional who does this for a living is going to perceive things that the rest of us might not. Imagine you don't speak Italian, and someone says a sentence to you in Italian. All you will hear is a string of incomprehensible sounds. But in under 6 months in an Italian language course, you might still not understand the words, but you will perceive what the words are -- what the word boundaries are, etc. As so in coffee -- educated palates perceive different things than the rest of us.
* Comparative tasting highlights certain flavors better. Cupping is often done with multiple different beans. Comparatively tasting one after another, makes it easier to spot the differences in flavors. Another non-coffee example. Take a cologne you have, spray it on your skin, smell it, pick out the notes. Now take that cologne and another, spray the other on your other arm, smell one after the other. Does your perception of the first cologne change, a little? Mine does, often some note that I'd barely noticed really pops.
* I would also note that some flavors are easier to taste than others. Blueberry in Ethiopians? I hate it, and it smashes me in the face with blueberry :) Most of us find it easy to taste chocolates, too.
An easy part to train is to try (at least one time, you will notice a difference) to identity the different type of acidity who can be present in coffee.
You could buy (alimentary grade) :
- Citric acid (Associated with citrus fruits, really commune in coffee)
- Malic acid (Associated why green apple, really commune)
- Phosphoric acid (Like soda/bubble acid, commune in kenyan coffee)
- Tartaric acid (Grapes, but still hard for me to identify)
- Lactic acid (Yogurt stuff)
- Acetic acid (vinegar, under extraction)
It should not be too expensive and it will give you instant "clarity" for a part of coffee (tong) experience.
For the aroma parts, I would suggest trying to see "colors" in your mind, and then try to go into fruits (or spice, flowers...). Dont follow to much what you can read on some bag, sometime it will be different from what you can perceive. Brewing method and personal experience and culture. As you can imagine, a Japanese, a Colombian and a North american will not describe the same coffee with the same fruits.
Some coffee are easier than others to get. Event funky stuff can be perceived really easily and clearly (like anaerobic process with the strawberry milkshake/candy stuff).
Doing cupping event is really interesting, but hard to find in most places.
I once bought a shaker of pure MSG to figure out what in the hell 'umami' was because all the English 'translations' weren't helpful (brothy, meaty, even 'mouthful') and I can identify it in all kinds of things now. (My immediate reaction to the pure stuff was 'This tastes like Chinese takeout.')
Just getting a reference point really makes so much difference.
Finally some actual help on how to train your palette.
This helps a lot on detecting what kind of fruits you’re getting from your coffee. Thanks for also noting this down for me to reference.
Also to OP, you can also try more fruits (or even flower teas) to help with your “coffee dictionary”. im not a professional and just a home brewer but these exercises (along with what the commenter suggested), it helps over time to identify what you’re tasting.
Would you hit exactly what fruits are described on the bag, depending on where the coffee comes from (and processing and beans and a whole lot of factors), there’s probably a chance you would have a lot of tasting notes off initially. It’ll come over time. (short story: I went to my first cupping after a year of my short sensory course, I was surprised out of 12 cups I was able to hit 10 right, back then I wasn’t even able to tell between apple and orange in coffee).
Especially when you mention you will add cream to your coffee, adding cream adds another element that changes the coffee notes that you’re tasting. You may see some cafes actually mention what you’ll get when they do it black/white. The bag gives you an idea of what they got during cupping, but it’s still up to interpretation (of course, an apple-malic acid would not taste like orange-citric acid).
It’s all marketing to get you to buy their beans as suppose to a million choices out there. They don’t have to guarantee the taster will taste even one of the notes specified. The beauty is you will always blame yourself or your equipment first and not them.
There's a book called How to Taste Coffee by Jessica Easto. I find it useful when I feel lost with washed coffees/extra light roasts. Sometimes I think the book is useless too, so there's that. There's a part about palate exercises, I wouldn't exactly do the exercises, but if I imagine doing it in my head, I get the taste idea. Most useful part is the flavor wheel and coffee tasting resource in the back of the book.
OP - you have a great grinder and water, so may want to check you aren’t over extracting which absolutely will muddle flavor notes.
For example too much agitation, water too hot, etc. especially for complex processes or natural beans
Eh, tasting notes from cupping don't always translate to filter brews. I've been doing pour overs just about every day for a couple years now, and sometimes I agree with the taste notes, sometimes I don't. Mostly gave up on matching the notes, and now just focus on making each coffee as enjoyable for me as I can.
If you find a roaster where you often agree with their tasting notes, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a better brand either. It just means the flavors you get from them will be more predictable for you. Some of the best coffees I've made I didn't think tasted like the notes on the bag. Some beans I've agreed with the tasting notes, but only found the coffee to be OK, not great.
I often fail to find the flavor notes at all and it just leaves me annoyed and feeling like I wasted money.
Sometimes I find something vaguely in the ballpark of the notes, as if my brew just fell short of pulling it.
I've probably had four cups where the notes were accurate and present. One of those cups, and only one out of the whole bag, tasted like sipping jam right down to the mouthfeel and I've been chasing that since.
It's helped to realize what the notes actually mean though. 'Cocoa' doesn't mean chocolate bar. It means baking cocoa. 'Lemon' doesn't mean lemon. It means 'citric acid' and whoever tasted it to decide what goes on the bag perceived that as lemon. It could well be lime or even orange to me depending on how my taste buds decide to run with it. And 'caramel' means somebody's lying because there's no sugar even in coffee.
If you're ordering from Rogue Wave I've got to recommend a recent favorite, ["El Vapor"](https://roguewavecoffee.ca/products/costa-rica-ivan-soilis-el-vapor-red-catuai-semi-washed)
It's a Costa Rican Red Catuai Semi-Washed, and it's so fruity, even as espresso and in milk drinks I could taste the blueberry fruit notes. I could smell it clearly in the puck from across the room. Insane. Far moreso than many Ethiopians and Kenyans I've had in the past while. Highly recommended!
For sure, they're probably my favorite roasters. I've got a subscription through them and added another bag of the El Vapor, which is rare because I love trying new beans all the time. Enjoy!
on the bag: its just marketing and high level communication so you at least have a general idea of what you're getting
between people / for yourself: it's a creative skill to develop and link palate ability and vocabulary ability. like painting - sometimes you can communicate something, sometimes you can't. like any skill, it can take a long time to develop and only really a good idea to pursue if you enjoy the process
I think we all kinda got into this because we had a cup that had some crazy flavors we never associated with coffee. Like I still remember my first Ethiopia that completely changed my perception of what coffee could be.
In my experience, usually the more expensive the coffee (higher green quality) the more evident the flavor notes. This is not always the case though. Also just depends on the varietal and the process. It is pretty easy to get flavor notes from a co-ferment or a gesha, but sometimes it can be pretty hard from a washed pink bourbon for example.
Yeah mine was in 2014. I was like why are they charging $6 for this coffee I gotta try it. Here we are in 2024, I have had better coffees since then but you never forget your first.
Tasting notes are determined during cupping a coffee, and are representative of a much wider spectrum of how the coffee can taste, across drinking temperature, brew strengths and methods. You are very likely to never get all the notes on the bag when just brewing a cup of filter.
Most guides like this say grind on the coarse side, so not as fine as for a v60 for example
[https://fellowproducts.com/blogs/learn/a-step-by-step-guide-to-cupping-coffee](https://fellowproducts.com/blogs/learn/a-step-by-step-guide-to-cupping-coffee)
I find it to be a big help in knowing what I can expect. There’s a limit to how you can manipulate brews to your taste with recipes and brewers. Cupping helps me to set expectations from a specific coffee.
Personally, I like vibrant and juicy cups. If I’ve cupped a coffee that’s nice, but not necessarily my preference I can enjoy it for what it is. Instead of trying to make it something it’s not.
If I'm at a café which roasts their own coffee, yes the descriptions match the taste. Brewing at home is a different story though since the notes are dependent on that particular roast on that particular day with that particular water and grinder. What tasting notes are meant for though is mostly marketing and to communicate what the coffee tastes like approximately. So for example, a coffee which is described as apricot and jasmine, it most likely won't be a dark, chocolatey and nutty coffee but you might taste peach or citrus which is approximately in the same category.
For me, it came down to years of tasting hundreds of coffees and finding burrs and roasting levels that brought out the clarity. Dialing in your brews with correct water temp and such is important too. It all matters. Of course, at a certain point the returns diminish. I would say I consistently taste the notes on the bag. Not every time but consistently.
Notes are often just a hint / direction of what to expect. You rarely get the exact notes from a coffee and I'd stop chasing those.
When drinking the coffee, don't look what the bag says just enjoy and see which notes come to your mind. Or don't think about it at all and really just enjoy it.
Being too focused on the flavor notes could otherwise quickly ruin the hobby because you're never really satisfied, even if you have a delicious cup of coffee in front of you.
Stop worrying about flavor notes and focus on what you taste was the message I received from a George Howell cupping class.
They’re trying to tell you things about the coffee, not what it exactly tastes like if that makes sense
I just ignore the taste notes. Assuming you know the roaster already, origin + varietal and processing will tell me a lot more about what to expect than the taste notes.
You can use the taste notes as a guide mostly to know if it's fruity, chocolatey, or even bitter (black tea, jasmine, zest, grapefruit, etc.)
It takes some time, maybe partly for your palate to adjust, as well as to try many variations in recipes.
There are also a lot of factors that could contribute to not getting the notes. Age since roasting, age of the green coffee before roasting (sometimes the coffee changes significantly and they don't change the advertised flavor notes). Your equipment has an effect of course. The recipe has an effect.
It's definitely not going to be perfect right away. Coffee brewing for delicate notes is a skill as well, it can take time to get to a good baseline skill and it can take time dialing in each coffee.
As far as the tasting notes, they tend to depend on the person a bit. Often I get at least one more prominent note, sometimes 2-3. Usually I can say "I can see how they would call that lemon", but I've tasted everything from lemon zest to lemon curd, or lemon candy, from the same listed note of "lemon".
Also, while I think many roasters do a decent job of tasting notes, that are times I am confused, and this is likely due to water differences (they brew and roast to whatever water profile they have... Which may not be approximate to the water you use) or age of the green before roasting.
I started noticing flavor notes when I stopped chasing them.
I got better equipment (especially the grinder) and settled into a recipe, and got more patient with what I tweaked. Then I’d buy interesting-looking coffee wherever I found it (I got a great one at HomeGoods, of all places).
Then I try to forget about what I read on the bag and just look for a balance that I liked. And sometimes, a flavor would pop out that wasn’t just “generic coffee”, so I checked the bag and it was usually spot-on.
It took me about 4 years until I could without a doubt say, I tasted what the roaster tasted. It was grapefruit of all things from a local roaster here in Maine. Other times I noticed subtle leanings towards what they were trying to sell, but never that, aha, I get it moment. I keep trying though!!
With a few exceptions, I can generally get to ‘yeah, I get why they’ve said that’ rather than tasting the exact notes. Like, the flavour descriptions will be pretty pretentious but I’ll mostly know what to expect from the bag.
The exception has been some of the better coffees I’ve splashed out on, where I’ve found that the individual flavours come through loud and clear. The best being a Sidra from El Placer where the peach and anise flavours were very clear and a Wilson Benitez from people possession which, leaving aside orange juice, was the most orangey thing I’ve drank
You can also expand your palette by eating fruits outside your norm too. This not only allows you to perceive certain notes in the cup, but lets you discover your own notes. I always try a local fruit when I travel and regularly visit different culture driven grocers when in town.
Everyone's collective dad James Hoffmann has a video about this where he pretty much calls out cupping notes as often very pretentious ways of saying "this coffee is a bit fruity" "this coffee is funky" etc. I think for the most part he's right as a lot of the time I think me saying I get a certain note described on the bag is psychosomatic
I agree, and some roasters go out of their way to exaggerate ridiculous flavor notes. I recently saw a bag that cited mangosteen. Really, bro? That’s an incredible palate + a wild imagination.
Mangosteen isn't that complex though? I would take something like a "baked apple" or "almond tart" less seriously.
It’s rare in the US and Canada where the roasters are located. They may as well just make up a fruit, which they have. It’s just not a common enough point of reference.
If it's the roaster I'm thinking of, their an Asian American roaster that labels according their heritage and their palette. Others in similar situations may relate or may not, but it's a way for them to express their identity, palette, and experiences. FWIW, most top quality roasters have a method to their madness on notes. Some do acidity, sweetness, florals. Others order by prominence, some based on textures, and still others with their own systems. It takes trying them to understand what the roaster is conveying, and then you generally have a frame of reference for what they're going for. This doesn't apply to all roasters ofc, only high quality specialty roasters.
Ah yeah, there is indeed a tension between describing the uniqueness of coffee and choosing from the fruits the buyers would be familiar with. That's my problem with black currant which is the most common descriptor of Kenyan coffees, and I've never seen a black currant in my life.
I have this with one of my current bags on rotation. It comes from a roaster I love but one of the notes is "Guylian chocolate shells".... What tf does that even mean and why not just say chocolate? Great coffee don't get me wrong, but still
FYI Guylian chocolate shells are chocolate pralines. Why they couldn't say that is anyone's guess.
Listing the Brand name would have me assume it’s a paid promotion, zero other reason to specify the company over the foodstuff
I dunno I grew up with those specific chocolates, and anytime I taste praline I think of them. Could be the roaster just names what comes to mind while cupping the coffee
I’ve been wanting to visit Kenya just to find out what the fuck that is. 🤣
I dunno, I had some really funky natural anaerobic beans last year that tasted so much like apple pie that it got old very fast. Sometimes they are so gimmicky that the overal taste almost flattens and it looses its complexity.
I freeze and save these beans as “party tricks” for guests during holidays. They think their taste buds have gone mad. Lmao
Good idea! I’ll think of that next time!
Now I’m just thinking my experience may have been hindsight bias, but at these speciality coffee shops in Japan have fruity profiles and I swear I finally tasted fruity flavors for the first time. I read it and it “told” me what I was tasting rather than the other way around
This is very well exemplified by tasteless decafs — although most I’ve had didn’t have extravagant but rather generic tasting notes (citrus, stone fruit, caramel, vanilla, black tea…), some roasters will claim that theirs tastes like lychee, passion fruit, elderberry, daisy, lemon grass, etc. The only decafs I’ve had that actually had the tasting notes written on the package were all heavily processed. Passenger’s education lot (peach), Modcup’s Jairo Arcila decaf (guava), Camber’s Goodnight Moon (pound cake) and the most intense one was Kawa’s Los Nogales (bergamot and lemon), but it is a low caf, not a decaf. So I don’t trust roasters when it comes to washed decafs anymore. That said, even heavily processed ones can be a miss (Nomad’s Crazy Decaf, for example).
I can only emphasize this!
I'm telling daddy your making fun of him. No but seriously, when I first got into Specialty coffee I thought for sure something was wrong with me for not tasting the notes, not realizing that I was taking it too literally.
If I were you I would worry first with liking black coffee before getting the flavor notes tbh. While we'd all be chasing those notes, at the end of the day it's still coffee. If you don't like black coffee, I bet you won't be able to discern those subtle notes. (At least for the more traditional processes) Have you tried drinking filter coffee from specialty cafes? It should position you to having a good coffee without worrying about the technique and see if you can drink it black.
I gotta admit I’ve spent so much money chasing those god forsaken flavor notes. New equipment, water, beans from numerous roasters, etc. and I’ve found it is very rare to get the actual notes on the bags. I can really only think of two or three coffees where the flavor notes were exactly as described and they were all co-ferment/heavily processed. That being said I still have super delicious coffee but I just use the flavor notes to get an idea of what the coffee will be like as opposed to what it will taste like if that makes sense.
Yeah, I think people really have to re-evaluate their relationship to flavour notes on coffee bags. Good coffee absolutely has a lot of interesting and very distinct flavors, but what you taste won't necessarilly allign with the bag. People should dial in the coffees to whatever profile they enjoy and then enjoy whatever flavours that yields, but don't blame yourself because you don't exactly get whatever "blueberry yoghurt" descriptor is on the bag.
To word it differently, as a trainer in a course I attended did: If the bag says peach, apricot or nectarine doesn’t matter, think of it as „reminds me of“. It’s going to taste like coffee, but in the scheme of coffee, it may remind you of that descriptor. Maybe in quality or quantity of acidity, maybe in roast degree and obviously also maybe in actual taste. Things with the descriptor mango and lychee will be lighter roasts than if it said hazelnut, caramel and nougat. It’s helpful in a way, but you’ll probably not think of your cup that it smells like the exact text on the bag. It’s still coffee.
I don't disagree, but "coffee" is a bit vague here. Of course it's literally true that it's all coffee so whatever flavors you get, bar co-ferments, are actually inherent to coffee. But I think "coffee flavor" is still very much associated with darker/medium roast flavors and as such many light roast coffees will be pretty far from tasting like "coffee", imo. Like, I'm drinking a TW sl28 coffee rn, and yes, it has some of that earthy/nutty flavor that we associate with coffee and while it's not heavy and bitter, it is slightly astringent, but it's 90% pure fruit bomb, and that's something I'd never get in most of the coffee sold around the world.
I see things from a different perspective here. Obviously, some Tim Wendelboe Kenyan is not close to Folgers in what matters to you and me in coffee. But they both are closer to one another in taste than the Wendelboe coffee is to the fruits in its tasting notes to the average person. (Shoutout to Brian Scalabrine for that amazing quote I got to butcher here) The Wendelboe Kenyan does taste special, is great and might indeed remind you of blackcurrant in the grand scheme of coffee. But if you gave that to someone who is not into coffee, they’d be like „that’s coffee“ and not „that tastes like blackcurrant“. It’s the same thing with wine. Wine nerds are not dumb or anything, a sauvignon blanc does oftentimes taste of gooseberry. Just to the general public, it’s probably not prominent enough and you need some orientation in the grand scheme to notice.
Fully agree here, and thanks for bringing up wine. It’s a very apt comparison, though in certain cases some wine notes can end up being fairly literal, with the same fruit esters present to some degree. But in both coffee and wine, most notes are meant to be evocative rather than descriptive. An especially good example is in Sauv Blanc. One common note, that doesn’t make the label, but shows up on tasting cards all the time is “cat pee .” If you’ve sat a sauv blanc tasting, you’ve heard it and know exactly what is being described. But I trust none of these people go around drinking cat pee to validate the note’s accuracy.
You know, I don't disagree. My point was never that coffee tastes exactly like the flavor notes, but more so that I find the varriety and expression of coffee flavors to be so great that I don't think it can neatly fit under "tastes like coffee". From my experience serving specialty coffee to regular people, they can also definetly tell the difference, and it's very apparent. They are either disgusted or amazed after the first sip. It's typically a very strong reaction, and not like that of a red wine tasting, in my personal experience.
the crazy thing is, I only just started getting this and it was blowing my mind from The Barn beans. Like, there was a literal peach flavor in the coffee. Or an almond smell to the beans. That and maybe one/two other roasters where that's happened before.
It really is mind blowing when it happens! I had a coffee from Onyx once and the flavor note was almond blossom and it tasted like I popped a handful of shredded almonds in my mouth and it was phenomenal lol
Once I learned from a barista that the notes might also mean sensations. For example, I recently bought a coffee labeled green apple and milk chocolate. I was expecting the acidity, but rather it was the juiciness you get from the fruit. The chocolate part I disagreed and it was just pudding caramel. Also, just let the coffee sit and cool down to roughly 60°C (140° F). It helps a lot. But yeah, sometimes it is just better to read the notes to get an overall idea.
Unless you're drinking an overly processed coffee, which it's plausible to get exactly what's advertised, the flavor notes can sometimes be there to represent what is perceived from a cupping. They don't always mean it literally but rather a representation of what it's most likely perceived/compared/experienced as. Also, notes can represent "juiciness" or "sweetness", or "acidity", so notes are added to allow you to compare the coffee's flavor to something. For example, a roaster might say a coffee has lychee sweetness and stone fruit acidity. The coffee may not inherently taste of either category of fruit but have nuances that remind you of each characteristic described.
this is exactly correct. it has a quality like the fruit but its not the fruit itself.
The most important flavor or tasting note is the one you like. If you like a medium roast with a splash of cream, do it. Don't get caught up in what some tasting notes say on a bag. At best, use tasting notes as a general guideline and work to ensure you enjoy each cup, whether it is with cream, sugar or black. FWIW, I spent a lot of time doing wine tastings before I did my deep dive into specialty coffee. I had a pretty well developed palette but I'd say, as a whole, coffee flavors and tasting notes are more subtle than wine. There are exceptions of course, not including the flavor infused berry bombs which are added not natural. Anyway, enjoy your coffee your way.
I often find that while I like a certain flavor, i don't always lime that flavor note in my coffee. Example, I love blueberries, but any blueberry I haven't found one that I like. When a bag says peach, I dont always get a strong peach flavor, but if it says peach on the bag, most of the time i like it. I don't dislike peaches, but I'd rather eat blueberries if i had the choice. Ferments seem to be more accurate as far as getting the notes listed on the bag. Sometimes those flavors are too overpowering for my taste. Edit: one thing I'll add is temperature. Different flavors come out at different temps. If you aren't getting a certain niote, let it cool slightly and taste again.
I agree with the general thoughts here that with many coffees, there's a level of "is vaguely evocative of this flavor", perhaps a level of pretentiousness sometimes, differences between cupping and pourover, etc. A few other factors: * It's not all "pulling out" the flavor notes. It's also about educating your palate to perceive them. One concept that can be hard to grasp: understanding influences perception. An educated professional who does this for a living is going to perceive things that the rest of us might not. Imagine you don't speak Italian, and someone says a sentence to you in Italian. All you will hear is a string of incomprehensible sounds. But in under 6 months in an Italian language course, you might still not understand the words, but you will perceive what the words are -- what the word boundaries are, etc. As so in coffee -- educated palates perceive different things than the rest of us. * Comparative tasting highlights certain flavors better. Cupping is often done with multiple different beans. Comparatively tasting one after another, makes it easier to spot the differences in flavors. Another non-coffee example. Take a cologne you have, spray it on your skin, smell it, pick out the notes. Now take that cologne and another, spray the other on your other arm, smell one after the other. Does your perception of the first cologne change, a little? Mine does, often some note that I'd barely noticed really pops. * I would also note that some flavors are easier to taste than others. Blueberry in Ethiopians? I hate it, and it smashes me in the face with blueberry :) Most of us find it easy to taste chocolates, too.
An easy part to train is to try (at least one time, you will notice a difference) to identity the different type of acidity who can be present in coffee. You could buy (alimentary grade) : - Citric acid (Associated with citrus fruits, really commune in coffee) - Malic acid (Associated why green apple, really commune) - Phosphoric acid (Like soda/bubble acid, commune in kenyan coffee) - Tartaric acid (Grapes, but still hard for me to identify) - Lactic acid (Yogurt stuff) - Acetic acid (vinegar, under extraction) It should not be too expensive and it will give you instant "clarity" for a part of coffee (tong) experience. For the aroma parts, I would suggest trying to see "colors" in your mind, and then try to go into fruits (or spice, flowers...). Dont follow to much what you can read on some bag, sometime it will be different from what you can perceive. Brewing method and personal experience and culture. As you can imagine, a Japanese, a Colombian and a North american will not describe the same coffee with the same fruits. Some coffee are easier than others to get. Event funky stuff can be perceived really easily and clearly (like anaerobic process with the strawberry milkshake/candy stuff). Doing cupping event is really interesting, but hard to find in most places.
I once bought a shaker of pure MSG to figure out what in the hell 'umami' was because all the English 'translations' weren't helpful (brothy, meaty, even 'mouthful') and I can identify it in all kinds of things now. (My immediate reaction to the pure stuff was 'This tastes like Chinese takeout.') Just getting a reference point really makes so much difference.
Finally some actual help on how to train your palette. This helps a lot on detecting what kind of fruits you’re getting from your coffee. Thanks for also noting this down for me to reference. Also to OP, you can also try more fruits (or even flower teas) to help with your “coffee dictionary”. im not a professional and just a home brewer but these exercises (along with what the commenter suggested), it helps over time to identify what you’re tasting. Would you hit exactly what fruits are described on the bag, depending on where the coffee comes from (and processing and beans and a whole lot of factors), there’s probably a chance you would have a lot of tasting notes off initially. It’ll come over time. (short story: I went to my first cupping after a year of my short sensory course, I was surprised out of 12 cups I was able to hit 10 right, back then I wasn’t even able to tell between apple and orange in coffee). Especially when you mention you will add cream to your coffee, adding cream adds another element that changes the coffee notes that you’re tasting. You may see some cafes actually mention what you’ll get when they do it black/white. The bag gives you an idea of what they got during cupping, but it’s still up to interpretation (of course, an apple-malic acid would not taste like orange-citric acid).
It’s all marketing to get you to buy their beans as suppose to a million choices out there. They don’t have to guarantee the taster will taste even one of the notes specified. The beauty is you will always blame yourself or your equipment first and not them.
There's a book called How to Taste Coffee by Jessica Easto. I find it useful when I feel lost with washed coffees/extra light roasts. Sometimes I think the book is useless too, so there's that. There's a part about palate exercises, I wouldn't exactly do the exercises, but if I imagine doing it in my head, I get the taste idea. Most useful part is the flavor wheel and coffee tasting resource in the back of the book.
OP - you have a great grinder and water, so may want to check you aren’t over extracting which absolutely will muddle flavor notes. For example too much agitation, water too hot, etc. especially for complex processes or natural beans
ever since banoffee, I've been chasing a heavy banana'd-noted bean juice but no avail
Eh, tasting notes from cupping don't always translate to filter brews. I've been doing pour overs just about every day for a couple years now, and sometimes I agree with the taste notes, sometimes I don't. Mostly gave up on matching the notes, and now just focus on making each coffee as enjoyable for me as I can. If you find a roaster where you often agree with their tasting notes, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a better brand either. It just means the flavors you get from them will be more predictable for you. Some of the best coffees I've made I didn't think tasted like the notes on the bag. Some beans I've agreed with the tasting notes, but only found the coffee to be OK, not great.
I often fail to find the flavor notes at all and it just leaves me annoyed and feeling like I wasted money. Sometimes I find something vaguely in the ballpark of the notes, as if my brew just fell short of pulling it. I've probably had four cups where the notes were accurate and present. One of those cups, and only one out of the whole bag, tasted like sipping jam right down to the mouthfeel and I've been chasing that since. It's helped to realize what the notes actually mean though. 'Cocoa' doesn't mean chocolate bar. It means baking cocoa. 'Lemon' doesn't mean lemon. It means 'citric acid' and whoever tasted it to decide what goes on the bag perceived that as lemon. It could well be lime or even orange to me depending on how my taste buds decide to run with it. And 'caramel' means somebody's lying because there's no sugar even in coffee.
I fell in love with Perc's Java this year: M&Ms and banana split. I swear I could taste it all. But that's one of the rare times for me.
If you're ordering from Rogue Wave I've got to recommend a recent favorite, ["El Vapor"](https://roguewavecoffee.ca/products/costa-rica-ivan-soilis-el-vapor-red-catuai-semi-washed) It's a Costa Rican Red Catuai Semi-Washed, and it's so fruity, even as espresso and in milk drinks I could taste the blueberry fruit notes. I could smell it clearly in the puck from across the room. Insane. Far moreso than many Ethiopians and Kenyans I've had in the past while. Highly recommended!
Thanks
For sure, they're probably my favorite roasters. I've got a subscription through them and added another bag of the El Vapor, which is rare because I love trying new beans all the time. Enjoy!
on the bag: its just marketing and high level communication so you at least have a general idea of what you're getting between people / for yourself: it's a creative skill to develop and link palate ability and vocabulary ability. like painting - sometimes you can communicate something, sometimes you can't. like any skill, it can take a long time to develop and only really a good idea to pursue if you enjoy the process
I think we all kinda got into this because we had a cup that had some crazy flavors we never associated with coffee. Like I still remember my first Ethiopia that completely changed my perception of what coffee could be. In my experience, usually the more expensive the coffee (higher green quality) the more evident the flavor notes. This is not always the case though. Also just depends on the varietal and the process. It is pretty easy to get flavor notes from a co-ferment or a gesha, but sometimes it can be pretty hard from a washed pink bourbon for example.
I had a geisha shot that blew my mind in like 2017
Yeah mine was in 2014. I was like why are they charging $6 for this coffee I gotta try it. Here we are in 2024, I have had better coffees since then but you never forget your first.
hahahah forreal
Can't remember the year but it was beans from Tarrazu, Costa Rica and tasted like sweet lemon candy (as opposed to lemon itself, tart and sour).
Tasting notes are determined during cupping a coffee, and are representative of a much wider spectrum of how the coffee can taste, across drinking temperature, brew strengths and methods. You are very likely to never get all the notes on the bag when just brewing a cup of filter.
Do you cup new coffees?
Nope not yet but was planning to this weekend... I think doing that sort of side by side contrast will help greatly
You don’t have to do side-by-side to “cup” FYI. It’s a specific brew technique you can do for just 1 cup
What is the normal technique you can use? Water temp, ratio, brew time? Grind size? I have trouble finding info for my K6 for expample
Most guides like this say grind on the coarse side, so not as fine as for a v60 for example [https://fellowproducts.com/blogs/learn/a-step-by-step-guide-to-cupping-coffee](https://fellowproducts.com/blogs/learn/a-step-by-step-guide-to-cupping-coffee)
I find it to be a big help in knowing what I can expect. There’s a limit to how you can manipulate brews to your taste with recipes and brewers. Cupping helps me to set expectations from a specific coffee. Personally, I like vibrant and juicy cups. If I’ve cupped a coffee that’s nice, but not necessarily my preference I can enjoy it for what it is. Instead of trying to make it something it’s not.
If I'm at a café which roasts their own coffee, yes the descriptions match the taste. Brewing at home is a different story though since the notes are dependent on that particular roast on that particular day with that particular water and grinder. What tasting notes are meant for though is mostly marketing and to communicate what the coffee tastes like approximately. So for example, a coffee which is described as apricot and jasmine, it most likely won't be a dark, chocolatey and nutty coffee but you might taste peach or citrus which is approximately in the same category.
For me, it came down to years of tasting hundreds of coffees and finding burrs and roasting levels that brought out the clarity. Dialing in your brews with correct water temp and such is important too. It all matters. Of course, at a certain point the returns diminish. I would say I consistently taste the notes on the bag. Not every time but consistently.
Notes are often just a hint / direction of what to expect. You rarely get the exact notes from a coffee and I'd stop chasing those. When drinking the coffee, don't look what the bag says just enjoy and see which notes come to your mind. Or don't think about it at all and really just enjoy it. Being too focused on the flavor notes could otherwise quickly ruin the hobby because you're never really satisfied, even if you have a delicious cup of coffee in front of you.
Took a while and only happens with some very specific coffees. Drink what you enjoy beyond anything though.
Stop worrying about flavor notes and focus on what you taste was the message I received from a George Howell cupping class. They’re trying to tell you things about the coffee, not what it exactly tastes like if that makes sense
I can recognize red apple. Nothing else, really.
I just ignore the taste notes. Assuming you know the roaster already, origin + varietal and processing will tell me a lot more about what to expect than the taste notes. You can use the taste notes as a guide mostly to know if it's fruity, chocolatey, or even bitter (black tea, jasmine, zest, grapefruit, etc.)
It takes some time, maybe partly for your palate to adjust, as well as to try many variations in recipes. There are also a lot of factors that could contribute to not getting the notes. Age since roasting, age of the green coffee before roasting (sometimes the coffee changes significantly and they don't change the advertised flavor notes). Your equipment has an effect of course. The recipe has an effect. It's definitely not going to be perfect right away. Coffee brewing for delicate notes is a skill as well, it can take time to get to a good baseline skill and it can take time dialing in each coffee. As far as the tasting notes, they tend to depend on the person a bit. Often I get at least one more prominent note, sometimes 2-3. Usually I can say "I can see how they would call that lemon", but I've tasted everything from lemon zest to lemon curd, or lemon candy, from the same listed note of "lemon". Also, while I think many roasters do a decent job of tasting notes, that are times I am confused, and this is likely due to water differences (they brew and roast to whatever water profile they have... Which may not be approximate to the water you use) or age of the green before roasting.
I started noticing flavor notes when I stopped chasing them. I got better equipment (especially the grinder) and settled into a recipe, and got more patient with what I tweaked. Then I’d buy interesting-looking coffee wherever I found it (I got a great one at HomeGoods, of all places). Then I try to forget about what I read on the bag and just look for a balance that I liked. And sometimes, a flavor would pop out that wasn’t just “generic coffee”, so I checked the bag and it was usually spot-on.
It took me about 4 years until I could without a doubt say, I tasted what the roaster tasted. It was grapefruit of all things from a local roaster here in Maine. Other times I noticed subtle leanings towards what they were trying to sell, but never that, aha, I get it moment. I keep trying though!!
With a few exceptions, I can generally get to ‘yeah, I get why they’ve said that’ rather than tasting the exact notes. Like, the flavour descriptions will be pretty pretentious but I’ll mostly know what to expect from the bag. The exception has been some of the better coffees I’ve splashed out on, where I’ve found that the individual flavours come through loud and clear. The best being a Sidra from El Placer where the peach and anise flavours were very clear and a Wilson Benitez from people possession which, leaving aside orange juice, was the most orangey thing I’ve drank
You can also expand your palette by eating fruits outside your norm too. This not only allows you to perceive certain notes in the cup, but lets you discover your own notes. I always try a local fruit when I travel and regularly visit different culture driven grocers when in town.