Taste
Terms:
Acidity:
A pleasant tartness,or snap similar to that of a fresh apple
or a dry white wine. Generally found in coffees grown at higher
elevations. A desirable trait.
Aroma: Basically the smell of coffee in
the cup. Different from fragrance which is the smell of freshly
ground, but unbrewed coffee.
Body: The physical sense of coffee in the
mouth. Heaviness, richness, and thickness or texture may be
felt on the back of the tongue.
Finish: Just as aroma is the overture, finish
is the finale. It describes the aftertaste that lingers.
Fragrance: Fragrance is the smell of dry,
freshly ground coffee before brewing.
Taste: Flavor. Taste tends to change as
coffee cools in the cup.
Other taste terms:
Clean: Without off-flavor or obscured taste.
Complexity: A shifting of flavors and sensations
in the cup.
Twisty: Usually a negative term, meaning
a coffee that shows different characteristics in a single
cup or from cup to cup.
Varietal: A set of flavors or characteristics
that distinguish a coffee from others. Basically, it's identity.
Roasting Terms
Baked: A taste or odor that gives coffee
a flat taste.
Burnt: Can be viewed as either a positive
or a negative, depending on your personal preference. Either
the pleasant flavor of Dark French or Spanish roasts, or the
flat taste of burnt rubber in your mouth.
Chaff: The papery stuff that comes off the
coffee during roasting. It is actually the innermost skin,
or silverskin, of the coffee bean that remains attached to
the bean after processing.
First Crack: This is a distinctly audible
"popping" or cracking sound the beans make during
the roasting process. It is generally accepted as the point
where pyrolysis begins (around 465 degrees internal bean temperature)
and due to chemical changes inside the coffee bean, they begin
to emit their own heat, thus raising the temperature inside
the roasting chamber.
Second Crack: This is the stage during the
roasting process where your coffee enters the "dark roasted"
realm. After the First Crack noise subsides, a few moments
pass (how long depends on your roaster, how big your roast
batch is, the type of bean, and a lot of other things) and
then the Second Crack begins. At this point the woody matter
in the bean begins to change. The Second Crack is more rapid,
(kind of like Rice Crispies). The Second Crack is a major
reference point for roasters. They often speak of roasting
"just short of the second crack; just into the second
crack, well into the second crack, etc.
Sweet: Sweet refers to the presence of some
carmelly flavors balanced with other characteristics of a
coffee. An overall pleasantness and balance achieved by good
roasting that is sensitive to the varietal character of the
bean.
Quakers: Unripe, blighted or underdeveloped
coffee beans. These beans sometimes "refuse" to
be roasted equally with other beans in the roast batch.
Coffee Terms
Organic Coffee: Coffee that carries the
"organic" label has been tested and certified to
have been grown, processed, shipped and packaged without exposure
to agricultural or other chemicals. It is as "natural"
as it can be.
SHG and SHB: These abbreviations stand for
"Strictly High Grown" and "Strictly Hard Bean"
respectively. The terms are used primarily with Central and
South American coffees to describe the growing conditions
and quality of the bean.
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