Nav: Home > Coffee News >

What are the flavors of coffee? Coffee tasting

Published: 2026-01-16 Author: World Gafei

Last Updated: 2026/01/16, I have seen more than once that coffee lovers who came to attend the tasting training course were pleasantly surprised after tasting the coffee. This surprise comes from the deep and familiar taste of coffee, people did not expect that a simple cup of coffee can still have such a rich taste, it turns out that we can drink coffee similar to many common fruits and nuts.

I have seen more than once that coffee lovers who came to attend the tasting training course were pleasantly surprised after tasting the coffee. This surprise comes from the deep and familiar taste of coffee, people did not expect that a simple cup of coffee can still have such a rich taste, it turns out that we can drink coffee similar to many common fruits and nuts.

The taste of coffee always surprises people, such as the rich aromas of apricot jam and dried fruit in Costa Rican coffee, the thick caramel and chocolate flavours of Brazilian coffee treated with honey, and the intense aromas of rosette, lemon sugar, strawberry cream and fruit jelly in Panamanian summer coffee. If you know enough about chemistry, you will find that coffee is actually the most complex drink in the world. There are many theories about the sensory experience and taste description of coffee, but each theory draws lessons from the basic method of red wine tasting, that is to compare the taste of coffee.

I often hear customers ask, "did you put marmalade in your coffee?" In my opinion, this is a valuable opportunity and the first step for consumers to explore the taste of boutique coffee.

Many of the flavors in coffee are similar to those we often come into contact with in our daily life, such as "raspberry". But coffee doesn't contain the chemicals that raspberries contain. Therefore, the advantage of "analogy" is that it can not only help us associate the taste of coffee with the common taste, but also highlight the difference between the two. Understanding and using "analogy" requires the tasters to remember enough flavors to connect with the taste in the coffee. Personally, I prefer to call taste memory "taste imagination". While remembering a lot of flavors, tasters must also have enough imagination to associate the taste of coffee with the taste in memory, for example, when tasting Kenyan coffee, the taste of coffee reminds you of blackcurrant.

Although this sounds complicated, in fact, in real life, "taste imagination" can be trained. For example, if Vegetime tastes delicious / salty, can you find other ingredients or foods that taste similar to Vegetime but are completely different? The reason we use analogy when tasting coffee is that coffee is actually a taste aircraft carrier. Coffee contains hundreds or even thousands of organic chemicals. Coffee tastes far more complex than symphonies. Using "analogy" to describe the taste of coffee can be said to be a "recognized taste imagination", and it is this recognized taste imagination that enables practitioners and coffee lovers in the same industry to communicate with each other.

Among them, the most authoritative coffee taste identification method is the "Coffee Flavor Wheel" issued by the American Fine Coffee Association (SCAA). Recently, the American Fine Coffee Association revised and updated the "Flavor Wheel" for the first time. The new edition of Flavor Wheel embodies the wisdom of many scientists and coffee sensory scientists. In order to further improve the old version of "Flavor Wheel," hundreds of elites from the American boutique Coffee Association, the World Coffee Research Organization (WRC), and sensory, scientific, and business circles have worked together for three years, constantly deepening the study of coffee sensation. It is worth mentioning that most of the words included in the Wheel of Flavor come from the Guide to Coffee officials published by the World Coffee Research Organization, and its authority has reached the highest level in the world.

"Coffee sensory organ atlas" is a tool book that condenses all the recognizable flavors of coffee and the corresponding proprietary adjectives. The book also uses a quantitative method to define the concentration of each taste with a value of 0-15. What is most impressive is that the book also provides detailed instructions on how to replicate each particular concentration of taste. For example, the book describes "dried grapes" as "concentrated, extremely sweet, slightly sour, brown, fruity, and floral dried grapes." To replicate the 5.5-strong flavor, the American Fine Coffee Association recommends pouring half a cup of chopped raisins into 3 scarps and 4 cups of water, heating them over high heat in a microwave oven for 2 minutes, then filtering the impurities and pouring them into a 1-ounce cup. In addition, the book also gives other specific ways to replicate the flavor, and even gives different explanations for different varieties of raisins.

This "coffee sensory organ atlas" provides a strong scientific basis for the development of the whole boutique coffee industry. With this book, we can use analogy to describe the taste of coffee more accurately. In addition, we can also use this book to train coffee tasters and exercise their "taste imagination". The structure of the new version of Flavor Wheel is clear, and the relationship between basic flavors, such as fruit, sugar, nut, vegetable, vanilla and spice, is relatively clear. Practitioners can use it as a professional tool to guide coffee lovers to go deeper and deeper. In addition, the new version of "Flavor Wheel" will be widely popular within the industry, whether in coffee plantations, growers' unions, cup testing laboratories, baking studios or coffee shops, no matter in any country in the world. people can use it to have a more in-depth and comprehensive understanding of coffee.