Coffee Tasting
Explore and communicate each coffee's distinctive flavours.
Introducing
The Coffee Tasting Framework
Use the The Coffee Tasting Framework to systematically assess aroma, mouthfeel, taste and flavour. You can:
- Identify each coffee’s defining characteristics
- Explain why some coffees are tastier than others, and
- Understand the coffee drinkers who will find the coffee appealing
The Coffee Tasting Sheet is your guide to defining a coffee's key characteristics. Plus, use the Aroma Map and Flavour Wheel to identify what makes each coffee unique.
Purpose
Let's empower coffee drinkers to select the coffees they will enjoy
Current tasting notes can be word-salads of unfamiliar place names, esoteric terms and bold promises. Selecting a suitably tasty bag of beans, or a brew in a coffee shop, can be surprisingly – and unnecessarily – difficult.
The Coffee Tasting Framework is accurate, intuitive and grounded in how people actually perceive flavour. It equips baristas and coffee drinkers to identify each coffee's defining characteristics and appreciate its appeal.
Step-by-step
Coffee Tasting Sheet
Your guide to identifying coffee's defining characteristics.
Systematically assess colour, aroma, mouthfeel, taste and flavour to understand why some coffees are tastier than others. There are many aroma and flavour combinations, but all tasty coffees share three attributes: a pleasant mouthfeel, a harmonious balance of tastes and strong alignment between taste and flavour.
Use the Coffee Tasting Sheet to identify a coffee's defining characteristics, appreciate its appeal and identify the coffee drinkers that will enjoy it.
Understand Aroma
Coffee Aroma Map
Navigate coffee's beguiling aromas
Use the Coffee Aroma Map to navigate the 101 most-common, positive aromas. Each aroma is clustered by category and organised its dominant aromatic compound to create two loops that combine to form a figure 8. The Aroma Map is intuitive to use: most specialty coffees should have at least one aroma from the top loop and the bottom loop.
ExplorE Flavour
Coffee Flavour Wheel
Identify coffee's distinctive flavours
The Coffee Flavour Wheel groups the 73 most-common, positive flavour descriptors into 14 easy-to-use categories. Each flavour label is naturally occurring and adjacent to similar flavours. It's the best flavour tool for tasting notes and communications.
book
The coffee drinkers' guide to enjoying coffee
The Coffee Tasting Handbook is the essential guide to appreciating and communicating coffee’s distinctive flavours.
Guiding baristas and coffee drinkers through the tasting process, The Coffee Tasting Handbook introduces the Coffee Tasting Framework, helping readers identify each coffee’s defining characteristics and understand why some coffees taste better than others.
Masterclass
Discover each coffee's defining characteristics
Our 90-minute class takes you through coffee tasting techniques so you can systematically assess aroma, mouthfeel, taste and flavour.
Apprecaite why some coffees are tastier than others and understand why you like some coffees more than others. We'll explore coffees from a range of origins, varieties and process methods. Suitable for baristas and coffee drinkers of all levels. Places are limited and booking is essential.
Articles
Specialty coffee is very, very tasty
Exploring how the industry can better communicate speciality coffee’s distinct and vibrant flavours.
Identifying coffee's distinctive flavours
Reinventing the wheel
Coffee tasting notes are broken because the SCA’s Flavour Wheel is incoherent. We need a new framework that’s accurate, intuitive and grounded in how people actually perceive flavour.
Audio
Assessing coffee
How to taste coffee: A guide for baristas, roasters and coffee drinkers
Tasting coffee isn’t hard, but doing it well requires a clear structure and an impartial appraisal. With this guide, you’ll learn how to identify a coffee's defining characteristics and understand why some coffees are tastier than others. Brew a single-estate coffee – and let’s begin.
Communicating coffee's flavours
How to write coffee tasting notes that sell, guide and delight
Tasting notes are simultaneously marketing copy to encourage sales, a promise to the consumer and a translation of a sensory experience into a narrative. Good tasting notes typically combine factual information and accurate descriptors combined with evocative descriptions.
Guide
Write tasting notes that sell, guide and delight
Tasting notes are simultaneously marketing copy, a promise to the drinker and a translation of a sensory experience into a narrative.
Assessing a coffee and writing tasting notes are two completely different skills. This guide takes you through each tasting note component and provides the tools for you to develop your own style and format.
Action
Better communicating coffee's distinctive flavours
It’s coffee drinkers that pay specialty coffee’s price premium and there’s significant room for the industry to improve how it matches coffee with consumers’ expectations.
United Baristas sees better tasting notes as mission-critical. Without consumers being willing to pay a larger price premium for delicious coffee, it’s difficult to see how specialty coffee will have the financial resources to met its social and environmental objectives, let alone navigate the challenges of the coming decades.
It's time for a flavour revolution.
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