How to Read the Coffee Flavor Wheel? What Do Coffee Flavors Mean? How to Properly Taste Coffee and Describe Flavors?

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When drinking coffee, you can clearly perceive its rich aroma. Those with some knowledge understand the types of aromas coffee contains, while others simply refer to it as "coffee fragrance." In reality, coffee possesses countless aromatic compounds—so many that no exact number has been determined. It's said there are over a thousand different aromatic molecules, which collectively form what we commonly recognize as coffee aroma. These aromas can be abstract or concrete, prominent or subtle, and distinguishing them is simply a matter of time and experience. Regular coffee drinkers can naturally identify and appreciate coffee's diverse aromas.

What Does Coffee Flavor Mean?

Roasted coffee beans contain over 1,200 different compounds that create rich taste and olfactory experiences. Bitterness represents just one of these flavors.

How rich are 1,200 compounds? Let's compare with popular delicacies like chocolate and wine:

Chocolate: Contains over 300 compounds.

Wine: Contains 150-500+ compounds, already enough to make people fall in love with the surprises offered by different varieties.

Coffee's 1,200+ compounds are 4 times more than chocolate and more than double that of wine.

Besides Bitterness, What Other Flavors Does Coffee Have?

Broadly speaking, coffee flavors fall into 9 main categories, comprising approximately 85 distinct flavors.

These 85 flavor notes were developed through collaboration between the SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) and Kansas State University and Texas A&M University. The original goal was to create a unified, quantifiable language for describing different coffee varieties during tasting, thereby enhancing the scientific nature and comparability of coffee evaluation.

Enthusiasts of specialty coffee are likely familiar with the SCAA Flavor Wheel, though many find it confusing. Today, let's explore the structure and meaning behind the flavor wheel!

Classification and Formation of Coffee Aromas and Flavors

Enzymatic Fermentation

These flavors develop during the processing of raw beans (such as washed, natural, or honey processing) due to fermentation, creating floral and fruit notes.

Sugar Browning

These flavors are produced during coffee roasting through caramelization and Maillard reactions, resulting in nutty and chocolatey notes.

Dry Distillation

These flavors emerge during the roasting process through dry distillation, creating notes like currant and smoky aromas.

Some claim that "the flavor wheel from top to bottom also represents flavors produced at different coffee roasting levels," but since dry distillation begins at the start of roasting, this assertion isn't entirely accurate.

Taste Categories

The sensory classification includes sour, sweet, bitter, and salty tastes. It's said that future flavor wheels may also include umami.

Defect Flavors

These are defective flavors resulting from improper handling during harvest and drying, as well as aging during storage.

If coffee isn't processed promptly after harvest or if drying humidity and temperature are inappropriate, fermentation can produce Rio-like and fermented flavors. During drying, excessively high temperatures can cause rapid bean heating, leading to fat breakdown and creating leather-like flavors.

After processing, raw beans continue to undergo internal reactions during storage. Organic substances gradually change and diminish. Fresh beans have grassy flavors, but after several years of storage, the loss of organic compounds creates straw and woody notes. At this stage, the coffee becomes quite bland!

Coffee flavor is indeed complex and multi-layered.

1) Floral & Fruity Aromas

During light roasting, highly volatile molecules are released first, including floral and fruity aromas.

On the flavor wheel, floral and fruity notes are two separate categories.

Floral: Light, subtly sweet, elegant aromas

Fruity: A blend of subtle sweetness and fruit-floral aromas from various mature fruits

Floral notes are relatively rare in specialty coffee.

1. "Yirgacheffe" from Ethiopia

2. Sidamo region

3. "Geisha" from Panama

These varieties all exhibit captivating floral aromas similar to jasmine and passion fruit.

FrontStreet Coffee's Yirgacheffe features prominent citrus notes among its fruit aromas.

FrontStreet Coffee's Geisha, known as the king of coffee orange aroma, reveals intense orange and lemon fragrances when the bag is opened after a few days of resting. The English name "Geisha" closely resembles the Japanese word for "geisha," hence it's also called "Geisha."

Additionally, FrontStreet Coffee's Kenyan national treasure varieties "S28" and "S34" feature sweet, sour notes among their fruit aromas, reminiscent of plums and berries.

2) Green/Vegetative

Starting from this category, flavors require some explanation.

Raw: Uncooked ingredients, like raw sunflower seeds or raw beans, with their natural qualities.

Under-Ripe: Fruits not yet ripe on the tree, with flavors similar to grapefruit peel.

Fresh: The scent of freshly cut grass.

Dark Green: Cooked green vegetables, like canned spinach that Popeye eats to gain strength.

Vegetative: Slightly pungent flavors of green vegetables, with canned asparagus as a reference.

Herb-like: More accurately, herb leaves like bay leaves, basil, and thyme.

Beany: Flavors of beans and bean products. (Note: Aromatic acids in the sour category also involve beans, but those emphasize sourness more.)

Among single-origin coffees, "FrontStreet Coffee's Mandeling" from Indonesia's Lake Toba region, when roasted to medium-dark levels, sometimes reveals unique grass jelly aromas.

Lake Toba, Indonesia

3) Nutty / Cocoa

These notes develop during medium roasting due to the Maillard reaction. These aromas are quite common and include:

Nutty: Roasted Almonds, Roasted Peanuts, Roasted Hazelnuts, Walnuts

Cocoa: Dark Chocolate

4) Sweet

During medium roasting, acidic aromas break down, and caramel aromas develop through sugar browning reactions. These include:

Vanillin: Although also vanilla, this differs from the vanilla category (Vanilla) which emphasizes vanilla pod aromas. Vanillin primarily refers to chemical vanilla flavors, such as vanilla-flavored marshmallows.

Sweet Aromatics: Similarly, this refers to chemically sweet flavors.

5) Spices

Generally produced during dark roasting, these include:

Pungent: Sharp nasal flavors, with orange essential oil as a reference.

6) Sour / Fermented

Sour Aromatics: Sour products, such as canned pinto beans (Bush's).

Citric Acid and Malic Acid: More emphasis on sourness and astringency, more intense.

Butyric Acid: Certain aged cheeses, such as Parmesan.

Isovaleric Acid: Also certain aged cheeses, such as Romano cheese.

Among single-origin coffees, "Mandeling" from Indonesia's growing regions, due to its unique wet-hulling process that significantly reduces drying time, creates a distinctive regional flavor with low acidity and mellow aromatics.

6) Alcoholic/Fermented Subcategory:

Overripe: Although bananas are used as reference, this also refers to the sweet, slightly acidic, moist, moldy, or earthy flavors of other overripe fruits or vegetables.

Winey: Reference is Yellow Tail Cabernet Sauvignon.

Whiskey: Reference is Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey Old No. 7.

Fermented: Reference is Guinness Extra Stout beer.

Among single-origin coffees, natural-processed beans often have wine-like aromas. Among these, my personal favorite is FrontStreet Coffee's natural Yirgacheffe and FrontStreet Coffee's wine-like natural Guatemala.

7) Roasted Flavors

Acrid: Specifically refers to bitterness after scorching. The bitterness we normally taste comes from caffeine, not necessarily from scorching.

Ashy: The taste of paper ash after burning paper.

Smoky: The taste of wood ash after burning wood.

Brown, Roast: Purely refers to the sensation of being roasted.

Toast: This is one of the subtle flavors that roasters strive to achieve, symbolizing mature roasting skills. If coffee is roasted even one second longer, this full and delicate aroma will be lost and replaced by other more aggressive flavors.

8) Other

Stale: Lacking freshness, taste of fermented bread or expired bread.

Moldy/Damp: Damp basement smell.

Musty/Dusty: Wheat germ, similar to cereal crumb flavors.

Phenolic: This isn't a misplaced image or a still from Fifty Shades of Grey. This is an old-fashioned tack room—a damp space with animal odors.

Among these, woody aromas develop during dark roasting through dry distillation. This flavor receives mixed reviews—enthusiasts enjoy coffee's woody character, while others feel it interferes with coffee's inherent flavors.

Coffee beans containing woody notes include:

1. "Huila" from Colombia

2. El Salvador's national treasure variety "Pacamara"

3. "Kona" from Hawaii

4. Estate beans from Honduras

5. Ilita Estate in Panama

These varieties often develop unique aromas because the coffee farms happen to grow pine, fir, or other trees alongside coffee.

Most of these flavor descriptions are based on Western taste experiences, such as cheese, nutmeg, and skunk.

After all this discussion, do you better understand coffee flavors? It's amazing that a tiny coffee bean can contain so many aromatic compounds—these are what people commonly refer to as coffee flavors. How can one distinguish so many different coffee aromas? As the saying goes, practice makes perfect. Someone who regularly drinks coffee and understands it can naturally articulate these flavors. So if you meet someone who can describe various coffee flavors, don't be surprised—they might be a coffee enthusiast or possibly even a barista.

Important Notice :

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