“What the hell are tasting notes?”

Good morning, coffee lovers. Do me a quick favour ( I know you’ve just sat down but…) stand up and grab the bag of coffee you’ve used to brew up this morning and find the tasting notes on it for me. If you don’t have a bag, no worries, today’s tasting notes for the sake of this substack are tropical fruits and blueberry from our latest release; Fredy Leonardo Gomez.

Some may be sitting here wondering what the hell do these tasting notes mean. Others will be sipping and swirling their brew trying to figure out if they agree with the notes the roaster has given and finally some will just be enjoying their brew and slowing down.

So, what the hell are tasting notes? What they aren’t are flavours injected into the coffee. They are flavours that occur naturally in the coffee depending on the origin, process, roasting style and how it’s brewed. So when you read “tropical fruits” or “blueberry” they are tastes we identified whilst cupping (this is how we quality control coffee and the process used to decide tasting notes. It is simply 13g of coarsely ground coffee, in 200ml of 93 degree water. Left for 3mins, top scrapped off and then let to cool for another 7mins before tasting).

Another way to think about tasting notes is to redefine the terms as “reminds me of”. So during cupping we would loudly slurp off our cupping spoon, swirl the coffee around in our mouths and think, in regards to Fredy Gomez, this coffee tastes like or reminds me of tropical fruits and blueberry.

Below is a tasting wheel (click here to interact with it) which is a great way to start learning more about tastes and improving your palette. For example, in cupping you might decide that the coffee tastes fruity so then you move out a step on the wheel and decide it’s berry tasting and finally identify it as a blueberry. Sometimes the taste isn’t definitive and we may decide it is just berry tasting and can’t identify which type of berry

Like all things taste, they are very subjective. Great examples are here in NZ where multiple roasters will have the same green coffee but after they roast and cup them nearly every bag will have different tasting notes on them. The way I like to think about it is that the notes help paint the general picture for how the coffee will taste. If I see notes of peach, strawberry and watermelon I am expecting a quite bright and fruity coffee, most likely roasted quite light to help highlight these flavours.

You tasting those notes mentioned on your bag? A little tip before I leave you to enjoy the rest of your cup and your morning. When you take your next sip, instead of just swallowing it straight away. Swirl it all around your mouth. You’ve got up to 10,000 taste buds in there and you’ll taste different things in different parts as you swirl it around. Give it a go and let me know how you get on in the comments below!

See you next week

Sam

The world moves fast. Slow down.