It's just a cup of coffee. Do you really need to describe the flavor so accurately?

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Everyone who tries to describe the flavor of coffee will say that it is not easy. Coffee is popular because of its unique and rich flavor and aroma. Consumers, bean bakers, cup testers and traders all want to describe the flavor they drink into words.

But could the problem be that we can't describe it more accurately? When we describe the flavor more accurately, will it increase the consumer's drinking experience?

Recently I encountered some problems with coffee, which made me wonder how we could describe the flavor directly, or could we write the description more appropriately?

The cup test helps us find out the flavor and aroma of coffee. Source: Toby's Estate Indonesia

A flavor that we cannot describe.

It all stems from the fact that we have to record the flavor of newly purchased Ethiopian Kelloo washed coffee. Everyone in the baking factory quickly distinguishes the sweet and sour taste of fruit like oranges and pears, but it has a strong and floral flavor that is difficult for us to describe.

The closest description is "rose", but none of us think it is very accurate. In the end, we chose the word "rose water" to describe this cup of coffee, trying to convey the weight and sweetness of the rosy aroma in the coffee.

Use "rose water" to describe the flavor of Kelloo, but is this correct? source: Hannah Campbell

I don't think we caught the rose-like aroma, but it all became clear a few weeks later, and my partner and I spent a rare and unforgettable holiday on a farm in Ireland.

The farm is a place full of pastoral scenery, and between the shed and the orchard, the vats of apple juice are slowly turning into vinegar. The strawberry scaffolding next to it extends sideways. In the store on the farm, mountains of apples give off an incredible fragrance.

It is this aroma that reminds me of Kelloo, which not only reminds me of the sweetness of ripe apples, but also has a rich floral flavor, which reminds me that roses and apples are actually distantly related. James Hoffmann has mentioned in the past how difficult it is to describe the flavor of an apple, which makes me think again about how we can more accurately describe drinking floral coffee.

Apple tree

It's not a rose. It smells like a rose.

On that day, we visited a Swiss hut surrounded by climbing roses and smelled a variety called Albertine. It smelled like the smell of the pile of apples that intoxicated me that day.

A cabin wrapped in Albertine roses, source: Tom Hopkinson

This makes me think that maybe we struggle with using roses as the word to describe Kelloo flavor, because roses don't all smell the same. I began to try to describe the smell of roses, first walking around the cabin, and then I went to visit the Dublin Botanical Garden.

Albertine rose with apple scent, source: Tom Hopkinson

What does a rose smell like?

Of course, most roses smell like roses. And this is the ideal aroma we are used to smelling in rose water or perfume, but usually each smell is unique (it is not easy to describe these flavors).

Sure enough, I smelled the aroma of apples several times, starting from the Swiss hut with Albertine, as well as several other roses I saw in the botanical garden.

Citrus aromas are also very common, with unique lemon aromas in yellow roses and very strong grapefruit aromas in Harry Edland roses.

Harry Edland rose has a strong grapefruit aroma, source: Tom Hopkinson

Some roses like Red Devil and Honore de Balzac have ripe peach aromas combined with sweet peach and fresh cucumber mint aromas. In addition, people like Mme Isaac Pereire have strong rose aromas, but they also have strong aromas of menthol and eucalyptus.

At the other extreme, Alexander roses have almost no fragrance, but if you smell it carefully, you can find the scent of candles in the church, perhaps a faint scent.

The last rose I smelled that day had the rose scent of the most classic bathroom soap. I was glad that its name was Radox Bouquet, a brand of soap sold in Ireland, Britain, Australia and many countries.

Mme Isaac Pereire has strong menthol and eucalyptus aromas, source: Tom Hopkinson

What does all this have to do with describing the flavor of coffee?

Do these unique aromas mentioned above really mean that roses can be used to describe the flavor? In other words, when we use a description of a particular variety of rose, it is meaningless and very confusing to someone who doesn't know about the rose.

It is a problem even in professional bottle training tools such as "wine nose". The roses described by Lenoir are mainly Damascus roses but are marked with tea-scented roses or red currant jelly.

Damascus roses, often used as rose water and rose essential oils, are native to China and have many different aromas such as tea, cloves and Cordyceps sinensis. On the other hand, the tea-scented rose is completely different, with the aroma of red currant jelly, it is indescribable.

After trying to mark all the different kinds of rose aromas, can I really use these aromas to describe the flavor of Kelloo? To be honest, if you ask me now, I will describe it as "sweet pea". As for what kind of pea it is, I don't know.