Coffee tasting terms, in plain words

1 is low, 2 is medium, 3 is medium-high, 4 is high. The further a dot sits from the centre, the more of that thing there is.

The numbers are mine. I score my three roasts against each other, not against every coffee in the world. A 4 for acidity in my light roast means it is the brightest cup I sell, not that it is the brightest coffee that exists.

A tasting note is something the coffee reminds me of. Citrus, honey, cocoa, caramel, nuts, chocolate, smoke.

Nothing is added to the beans. There is no honey in the bag. The flavour comes from the coffee plant, the farm, and how long I roast it. If you do not taste what I wrote, you are not wrong. People taste different things.

Acidity is the bright, lively part of a coffee. It is the same quality you notice when you bite a green apple or squeeze a lime into something.

It is not sourness, and it has nothing to do with how the coffee sits in your stomach. High acidity makes a cup feel sharp and awake. Low acidity makes it feel round and calm. Light roasts keep more of it. Dark roasts have less.

Bitterness is the dry, dark edge you get from dark chocolate or the last sip of a strong cup.

A little of it gives coffee its backbone. Too much usually means the roast was long, the grind was too fine, or the water sat on the grounds for too long.

Body is the weight of the liquid in your mouth. Water is thin, milk is thick, and coffee sits somewhere between.

A French press or an espresso gives you more body. A paper-filtered pour-over gives you less, because the paper holds back some of the oils.

Sweetness is a natural sugar-like taste in the coffee itself, before you add anything. Ripe fruit is sweet in the same way.

Well-picked, well-roasted coffee is sweeter. Under-ripe beans and burnt beans are not.

Mouthfeel is the texture, not the taste. Silky, oily, thin, syrupy, dry.

Body is one part of mouthfeel. I keep body on the chart because it is the part that changes most between my roasts.

The finish is what stays in your mouth after you swallow, and how long it stays.

My dark roast has a smoky finish that sits around for a while. My light roast finishes quickly and cleanly.

Balance is when no single part shouts over the others: the acidity, the sweetness, the body and the bitterness all fit together.

My medium roast is the balanced one. If you are unsure what to buy, that is the reason I suggest it.

Aroma is the smell, both from the dry grounds and from the cup.

Most of what people call taste is smell. If you have a cold, coffee tastes flat, and this is why.

How long and how hot I roasted the beans. Light, medium, or dark. The small dial on the chart shows where a roast sits.

A lighter roast keeps more of the taste of the farm: fruit, flowers, acidity. A darker roast tastes more of the roasting itself: chocolate, toast, smoke. Neither is better. They are different cups.

While beans roast they make a cracking sound, twice. The first crack sounds like popcorn and tells me the beans are now drinkable coffee.

The second crack is quieter and sharper. I stop my light roast well before it. My dark roast goes into it. That is most of the difference between the two bags.

Development is the time between first crack and the moment I stop the roast. It is where sweetness and body build.

Too little and the coffee tastes grassy and sharp. Too much and everything turns flat and smoky.

The coffee comes from one place, rather than being mixed from several. Mine is from one small farm in the coffee hills of Karnataka.

It is not automatically better than a blend. It just means you can taste one farm at a time.

The two coffee species you will meet. Arabica is sweeter and more delicate. Robusta is stronger, more bitter, and has more caffeine.

Everything I sell is arabica. Most Indian instant coffee and many espresso blends use robusta, which is why they taste heavier.

How the fruit is removed from the seed at the farm. In a washed coffee the fruit is stripped off and the seed is fermented and rinsed. In a natural coffee the whole cherry is dried with the seed inside.

Washed coffee usually tastes cleaner. Natural coffee usually tastes fruitier and heavier.

The roast date is the day the beans were roasted. It matters more than a best-before date. I roast your bag after you order it, so it will be a few days old when it reaches you.

Fresh coffee gives off carbon dioxide, which gets in the way of brewing. I ask you to let the bag rest three or four days before you open it. After that it is at its best for about a month.

The gas leaving the beans after roasting. It is the reason the bag has a small one-way valve, and the reason very fresh coffee foams up and tastes uneven.

How coarse or fine the coffee is ground. Fine for espresso and South Indian filter, medium-fine for a moka pot, pour-over or AeroPress, medium for a drip machine, coarse for a French press or cold brew.

Grind size is the fastest way to change how your coffee tastes. If you tell me how you brew, I will grind for it.

The dose is how much dry coffee you use. The yield is how much liquid you end up with. The ratio is one against the other.

A useful place to start for filter coffee is 60 g of coffee for a litre of water, which is about 15 g for a 250 ml cup. For espresso, people often use 18 g of coffee to get 36 g of liquid.

Extraction is water dissolving the coffee out of the grounds. Everything you taste came out this way.

Time, temperature, and grind size decide how much comes out.

You did not take enough out. The cup tastes sour, thin, and salty, and it stops short.

Grind finer, use hotter water, or brew for longer.

You took too much out. The cup tastes bitter, dry, and harsh, and it clings to your tongue.

Grind coarser, use slightly cooler water, or brew for less time.

The first small pour in a pour-over, twice the weight of the coffee, left for about thirty seconds.

The bed of coffee swells and bubbles as gas escapes. It lets the rest of the water reach the coffee evenly.

The thin brown foam on top of an espresso, made of gas and oils.

It tells you the coffee is fresh. It does not tell you the shot tastes good.

When water finds one easy path through the coffee instead of soaking all of it. Common in espresso.

The result is sour and bitter at once. Distributing and tamping the grounds evenly is the fix.

Two ways of brewing. In immersion the coffee sits in the water, as in a French press or a cold brew. In percolation the water passes through, as in a pour-over or a filter machine.

Immersion is forgiving and gives more body. Percolation is cleaner and needs more care.

Coffee scored above 80 out of 100 by trained tasters, and usually sold with the farm named.

In practice it means someone paid attention at every step. It is a claim about care, not a promise you will like it.

The standard way to taste coffee: ground coffee, hot water, no filter, and a spoon.

It exists so two people can compare the same coffee the same way. You do not need it at home.

Coffee from more than one place, mixed on purpose, usually so the taste stays the same all year.

My custom roast is not a blend. It is the same single-origin bean, roasted toward the notes you asked for.

Coffee brewed slowly in a two-part steel filter and served with hot milk and sugar. Usually a dark roast, often mixed with chicory.

My dark roast, ground fine, works in one. There is no chicory in my bags.