What Does Coffee Cleanliness Really Mean? Understanding Specialty Coffee Evaluation Standards

Recently, FrontStreet Coffee noticed that many friends have developed some misconceptions about coffee's "cleanliness." Some friends believe that cleanliness refers to low flavor complexity in coffee, with high recognizability of individual flavors. Because the complexity is low, they can distinctly taste certain flavors, which they consider a manifestation of high cleanliness. But is this really the case?

Nonono, being able to taste very specific flavors from coffee is indeed one manifestation of high cleanliness, but this is not something that can only be achieved when coffee flavor complexity is low. Additionally, some friends believe that coffee cleanliness refers to the transparency level of the coffee liquid, which is also a misunderstanding.

That's alright. Today, FrontStreet Coffee will help everyone重新认识一下, what exactly does coffee cleanliness mean!

What Does Coffee Cleanliness Mean?

Whether it's the SCAA cupping form or the COE cupping form, "Clean cup" (cleanliness) is an important evaluation item! Why? Because whether coffee is "clean" or not is closely related to its own quality.

For a coffee to achieve a passing score in "cleanliness," it first needs to be free of any negative, defective flavors. Previously, FrontStreet Coffee mentioned in detail in another article about factors affecting coffee cleanliness that improper operations during coffee cultivation, processing, roasting, and brewing can cause coffee to produce unpleasant negative characteristics. For example, if unripe quaker beans are mixed in the coffee, it will have a hay or roasted melon seed taste; beans that maintain high humidity for long periods during processing can easily become moldy and develop a musty smell; beans with burnt surfaces due to excessive heat during roasting will have a burnt bitter taste; during brewing, excessive extraction efficiency or using beans that are too fresh can easily lead to undesirable sensations such as astringency, roughness, and dryness...

These negative elements in coffee not only bring us an unpleasant drinking experience but also interfere with the recognizability of coffee's positive flavors. Therefore, whether a coffee is clean first depends on whether it has negative characteristics. Once we find that the coffee has no negative characteristics, cleanliness enters the second evaluation stage, which is the clarity of flavor. Whether coffee has defective flavors can only ensure whether the coffee's quality meets standards, while the clarity of flavor is the main evaluation standard for cleanliness. The clearer and richer the coffee's flavor performance, the higher the cleanliness score.

If after drinking the coffee, we cannot clearly associate its specific flavors - it's very模糊, and we can't even describe the outline of a major category - then this coffee's cleanliness is destined not to be very high. However, if after drinking the coffee, we can roughly distinguish which major category its flavor belongs to - berries, tropical fruits, or white floral notes - then this coffee's cleanliness will be higher than the former. If we can directly taste specific flavors from the coffee, such as orange, citrus, cherry tomatoes, jasmine, etc., without any other negative characteristics, then this represents that these coffees have very high cleanliness.

Cleanliness as Purity

In other words, we can also understand "cleanliness" as the "purity" of the coffee's overall performance. Just as the phrase "crystal clear" describes - because the water quality is clean enough, we can directly see the riverbed through the water, rather than seeing impurities that make the river turbid at first glance. The same applies to coffee. Therefore, we can understand why coffee cleanliness is equivalent to coffee quality - the higher the coffee quality, the higher the coffee cleanliness.

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473