Are bergamon-flavored coffee beans good? What does bergamot lemon taste like?

Question: what can be done with such a strangely shaped fruit? Cantonese: you can make soup!

If you are used to paying attention to the information about the outer packaging of coffee beans, you should have seen the flavor description of bergamot. It is not a fruit that we usually see everywhere in the market, and even many people (including Qianjie) have never come into contact with varieties, but the word always appears in coffee flavors that emphasize fresh flowers and bright acidity, especially the type of washing treatment.

For example, in the front street, in the description of the flavor of coffee beans such as the summer of washed green roses at the Emerald Manor in Panama, the washed Pacamara at Incht Manor in Guatemala, the washed Yega Sheffield in Ethiopia, and the washed Java at Rodriguez Manor in Bolivia, the word "bergamot" was found. So, what kind of smell does it represent?

In the Chinese area, the so-called bergamot since ancient times refers to the citrus varieties whose fruits grow like multiple fingers, which appear bright yellow when they are fully ripe, and often appear in the southern provinces of China, also known as bergamot, with a variety of medicinal values.

According to the encyclopedia, bergamot is a variety of citron (citrus) under the scientific name Citrus medica var. Sarcodactylis, generally translated as Fingered Citron, or appears under a more direct name: Buddha's Hand. However, these two English names about bergamot have never appeared in any version of coffee flavor theory or in the tasting notes of professional leaders, so where on earth did the "bergamot" come from?

After a while, Qianjie finally found a clue that the flavor of "bergamot", which often appears in the mouth of coffee makers, was actually translated from the word "Bergamot".

In Wikipedia, this kind of fruit is called fragrant lemon, which is Bergamot or Bergamot Orange in English. It has long been mistranslated as bergamot in Chinese, because fragrant lemon is actually a completely different variety from the bergamot mentioned above.

From a genetic point of view, fragrant lemons may be derived from a cross between limes and sweet lemons, closer to lemons. Its pulp is sour, but the skin is fragrant, and lemon oil can be extracted. It is widely used in perfume industry. It is grown from cologne invented by an Italian in the 1700s and was patented at the time. The basic flavor of this perfume is the essential oil extracted from the peel of fragrant lemon.

For those of you who like to drink English black tea, you must know that Earl Grey tea (Earl Grey tea), which is based on black tea, raised this bergamot essential oil (Bergamot) and got it. So when a coffee is written with the flavor of bergamot, its taste description often contains the words "Earl Grey Tea" or "Earl black tea".

As for the reason why fragrant lemons are translated into "bergamot", it is probably because the merchants wanted to translate the key word "Bergamot" in Earl black tea, because they did not know how to express it, so they used the name "bergamot", and people have been using it ever since. In fact, they refer to a kind of fragrant lemon that is round and a bit like a pear.

In addition to limonene and citral, fragrant lemon also contains a large number of linalyl acetate and linalool, these aromatic molecules give it not only a fresh citrus smell, but also some mild and elegant floral aroma, but also a bitter taste. Even in some flavor wheels, Bergamot lemons are classified as floral aromas.

Picture from: coffee commune

So coffee with bergamot in its flavor often points to bright sour beans. For example, many washed Panamanian roses are often described as the citrus aroma used to make Earl Grey Tea's raw materials.

Monarda didyma, an herbaceous plant native to all parts of the United States, is also known as "Bergamot" in English, so it is sometimes translated as "bergamot". Therefore, when "bergamot" is written in a coffee, it does not necessarily mean that it has only the fruity flavor of lemon, but it may also be that the barista is describing a unique combination of herbs and spices.

Because at the beginning, Qianjie also thought that the flavor of bergamot was really bergamot, so he found a "little green hand" that was not so photogenic. Although the fruit has not yet turned yellow, when you break off a petal close to the nose, you can immediately smell a citrus tone similar to green orange, with flower-like sweetness and fresh aroma of grapefruit peel, round fruit with a slightly upward sense of coolness. and the aroma is very persistent.

In fact, Qianjie also wanted to feel the "bergamot flavor" described by everyone, but Guangzhou, where it is located, could not buy fresh Bergamot lemons, so it had to look for this aroma in the washed green summer of Earl Grey Tea and Jadeite Manor.

Hand-washed green standard rose summer hand-brewed coffee has a very rich fragrance of white flowers, soft acidity of citrus, sweet taste of apricot, melon and Tieguanyin tea. As the temperature drops, Earl Grey Tea's feeling becomes obvious, clean and balanced.

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Front Street Cafe

No. 10 Baoqian street, Yandun road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu district, Guangzhou, Guangdong province