Does Coffee Really Have So Many Flavors? How to Learn to Distinguish Coffee Flavors? 85 Types of Coffee Flavors

Introduction

Single-origin coffee is becoming increasingly popular. When a barista hands you a fragrant cup of single-origin coffee along with a flavor description card, you sip the coffee while looking at the small card, wondering if this cup truly has so many flavors, and why you can't taste any of the flavors written on the card!

The Incredible Variety of Coffee Flavors

Scientists have isolated over 850 different compounds from a single cup of black coffee, and the combinations of these compounds create different flavors. Currently, there are 85 common coffee flavor categories, which are the specific flavors described on SCAA's new flavor wheel. In daily life, the variety of coffee flavor descriptions is even greater.

How to Distinguish Coffee Flavors Like a Barista

Actually, baristas can taste so many coffee flavors not because they have an unusually keen sense of taste, but because they pay more attention to the taste of coffee. Most people, when tasting delicious drinks or food, will simply exclaim: "It's delicious!" However, baristas will think about what specific flavors it has and what substances they consist of.

As shown in the new coffee flavor wheel, it consists of three rings. The inner ring represents general categories—flavor directions that most people can distinguish. For example, everyone can determine that lightly roasted Yirgacheffe coffee has fruity flavors, while dark roasted Mandheling coffee has nutty and cocoa flavors.

The middle ring represents secondary detailed classifications, which are rough subdivisions within the general categories. For example, lightly roasted Yirgacheffe coffee has citrus fruit flavors, while dark roasted Mandheling coffee has nutty flavors. Distinguishing flavors at the middle ring level is much more difficult than distinguishing those at the inner ring.

The outer ring contains the most numerous analogical flavor details. To describe a coffee's flavor precisely, one would say it has flavors similar to (analogous to) certain items. Being able to describe flavors at this level is the coffee flavor description that everyone aspires to. For example, lightly roasted Yirgacheffe coffee has lemon and orange flavors, while dark roasted Mandheling coffee has hazelnut and dark chocolate flavors.

Note: The term "barista" here refers to people engaged in the coffee industry.

Therefore, if you want to be able to distinguish the numerous flavors of coffee like a barista, it requires significant mental effort and time. FrontStreet Coffee would like to share some insights on this.

① Build a Flavor Memory Library — Eat More and Taste More

Most coffee flavors fall into categories such as herbaceous plants, fermented products, fruits, flowers, sugars, nuts and cocoa, and spices. These are all items we frequently encounter in daily life. The first step to learning to distinguish coffee flavors is to taste and remember the flavors of these analogous items. Only by having tasted kiwi can you know what kiwi tastes like. This is a process of persistence and accumulation over time. (Suddenly reminded of the tearful days of memorizing English vocabulary)

As for how to taste, it's certainly not about gobbling. Just as when we taste coffee, it's a multi-sensory experience involving smell, taste, and touch. Approaching every food you eat with this tasting attitude will help you remember the flavors more deeply.

② Be Good at Association — Coffee Flavors are Complex

You need to understand that a cup of coffee cannot be 100% a particular flavor. For example, when described as having citrus flavors, this doesn't mean it's 100% orange flavored, otherwise it would be orange juice. For example, when we taste a cup of Yirgacheffe, we experience "a wafting aroma containing some floral notes mixed with berry fragrance, while the acidity tastes like eating citrus, the sweetness is like honey, and the aftertaste is like the feeling after drinking green tea." These are not 100% matches, but there's at least a 70%-80% similarity.

That's why we often see flavor descriptions for a coffee bean that include multiple flavors. When we learn to distinguish one specific flavor in a coffee, it shows you've made great progress, but it's still far from enough. Some talented coffee cuppers can identify dozens of flavors in a single cup of coffee. As consumers, being able to identify 3 flavors in each coffee is already quite impressive.

③ Participate More in Exchanges

There's a situation where you can distinguish coffee flavors but find it difficult to express them in words. This is when you need to communicate more with others. Working in isolation can lead to being closed off, and through communication, you can absorb ideas you hadn't thought of. Another benefit of communication is helping everyone calibrate their flavor recognition. Since everyone's preferences and experiences are different, their understanding of certain flavors may not be consistent. For example, the dark chocolate in coffee flavors refers to 100% pure dark chocolate, unlike the sweetened chocolate we typically encounter.

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