What Do Coffee Beans Actually Taste Like? How to Distinguish Coffee Flavor, Aroma, and Taste?

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Have you noticed that on coffee packaging, we typically see information about the coffee's name and origin processing details, as well as its brewing flavor profile. For example, at FrontStreet Coffee, the Red Cherry from Yirgacheffe region offers notes of berries, strawberry, lemon, and fermented wine aroma, while the washed blue label Geisha from Hacienda La Esperanza presents floral and tea-like notes. All these details help us understand comprehensive information about a coffee bean.

So what exactly does coffee taste like, and why do we encounter such diverse and changing flavors during brewing and cupping? Beyond these tastes, there's also coffee aroma. Understanding the relationship between flavor, taste, and aroma can help us simply comprehend how coffee flavor is created.

Although this equation may seem simple, when you combine the five basic tastes humans can perceive (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami) with various different aromas, coffee flavors can be considered virtually limitless!

Coffee's Bitterness

Many people believe that coffee bitterness comes from caffeine. However, the reality is that coffee's aroma and flavor are actually produced after roasting. During the roasting process, green coffee beans gradually release moisture, lose weight, deepen in color, expand in volume, and slowly release aromatic oils. The high-temperature roasting process caramelizes the starches in coffee beans, bringing out sweetness and body. Whether it's light, medium, or dark roast, the caramelization process is unavoidable—only the heating degree and time differ, resulting in varying expressions of sweetness. When caramelization occurs at excessively high temperatures or for too long, it burns and produces bitterness, a phenomenon known as carbonization. This is similar to sugar stuck to a pan surface—excessive heating transforms sweetness into distinct burnt bitterness.

Coffee's Acidity

When beginners taste coffee acidity, they don't need to focus too much on specific acidity names, but should learn to distinguish between uncomfortable acidity, irritating acidity, strong acidity, dead acidity, and refreshing acidity. Acidity is one of the descriptive terms in coffee flavor profiles. If coffee has higher acidity, its aftertaste will be crisp, refreshing, and pleasant. If coffee has low acidity, it will produce a dull aftertaste.

Because acidity is often misunderstood, it can be described with words like "bright" and "vibrant." Coffee acidity can be divided into two types: one is "bright, lively, moderately acidic fruit acidity," and the other is "sharp acidity, over-fermented fruit acidity." The former belongs to high-quality acidity, while the latter is considered inferior acidity.

Coffee's Aroma

So-called aroma refers to the fragrance that emanates after coffee brewing is complete. Descriptions of coffee aroma include caramel notes, fruit notes, floral notes, richness, spiciness, and more.

Unpleasant aromas are caused by coffee defects, improper roasting, or improper brewing at the final stage, while normal aromas are what we can perceive—whether wet or dry aroma. Coffee aromas can be broadly categorized into several types:

1. Fruity: Lemon, orange, plum, peach, asparagus, grape, prune

2. Floral: Rose, wild ginger, jasmine, violet, mint leaf

3. Sugary substances: Honey, brown sugar, caramel, sweet potato

4. Spices: Cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cocoa

5. Woody: Pine, cypress, cedar, sandalwood, forest floor

6. Special aromas: Wine fermentation, musk, cream, leather

Coffee's Overall Flavor

Taste is the flavor of coffee in the mouth. For example, coffee might slightly taste of chocolate or caramel. When describing coffee flavor, you can start with coffee acidity, then move to aroma.

Coffee's Sweetness

The inherent sugar content in coffee itself is very limited. The sweetness we perceive when drinking coffee is generally detected immediately after it enters the mouth. People who don't drink coffee often or have limited coffee tasting experience are more likely to detect bitterness, sourness, and saltiness, while sweetness is often not easily perceived and distinguished. As tasting experience accumulates and the ability to discern flavors in coffee gradually strengthens, one can naturally appreciate the intensity of sweetness.

For more specialty coffee beans, please add the private WeChat of FrontStreet Coffee, WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473