Wake Up and Taste the Coffee: My Tasting Guidelines

Coffee has a reputation for being nothing but liquid caffeine. While I recognize the need for coffee as a stimulant and intellectual motivator, the vast majority of people in our world today overlook the culinary aspect of coffee. Most people douse their coffee with enough cream and sugar to make the flavor in the actual coffee irrelevant. There exist, however, unique flavor profiles across the different origins of the world and across the different roasters who bring them to market. As I taste origin coffees and blends that I acquire from various roasters, I will be recording my tasting notes on this site.

Tastings are very subjective. Your palate may read something completely different in the coffee than mine does, because coffee is such a complex material. Nevertheless, there are distinct characteristics in coffee from various origins. Latin American coffees tend to contain bright acidity, East African coffees are noted for their winy tastes, and Indonesian coffees are famous for their heavy-bodied earthiness. But just a word of caution: take my advice with a grain of salt. Taste the coffee for yourself.

My tastings are conducted using a 34 oz press pot. I usually drink the coffee for one to two weeks to get a feel for it and then concentrate on the taste characteristics for my final evaluation. I realize that my tastings are remarkably different than the professional 'cuppings,' but my interests are in how the cup of coffee will taste when it is brewed on a day-to-day basis for the average, every day coffee drinker.

My scoring method is not conventional by any means. I am not rating the 'best' and 'worst' coffees, because I believe that such assertions are far too subjective. The 'quality' of the coffee, in my opinion, is always determined by the individual who drinks it. I am merely interested in describing the coffee and highlighting its characteristics.

The four criteria I judge the coffee by are aroma, acidity, body, and flavor. Aroma is, to state the obvious, how the coffee smells. It is most pungent before the coffee cools. Some common descriptions of coffee aroma are smoky, florally, grassy, spicy, winy, and woody. Acidity refers to the 'bite' the coffee has on the tongue. It is usually recognized as a tanginess felt on the sides and tip of the tongue. If the coffee makes you pucker, it is probably very acidic. Body refers to the heaviness of the coffee on the tongue. Heavier-bodied coffees feel thick and sticky on the tongue, often lingering for a while rather after the coffee is swallowed. If you drank the coffee ten minutes ago and can still feel it caked on your palate, it probably had a heavy body. Flavor refers to what the coffee tastes like. Some coffees contain an array of flavors and some very few. Some are obvious and some are subtle. Some of the most common flavor notes in coffee are chocolate, citrus, berries, nuts, earthiness, herbs, and caramel.

I give each of these categories anywhere from one to five stars, one being the least intense and five being the most. Again, the intensity of any given category is not necessarily an indicator of its quality. Most Sumatras have very low acidity and high body while most Guatemalas have very high acidity and low body. These ratings are merely descriptive. I hope you benefit from my tastings as much as I do.