Taste and texture.
Each of our product pages gives a coffee’s aroma, flavour, mouthfeel and acidity. This page explains those words and shows a simple way to use them when you taste.
On this page
Aroma and flavour.
Aroma is what you smell. Flavour is what you taste, with smell and taste working together in the mouth.
Tasting descriptors such as cacao or orange zest refer to sensory impressions, not ingredients.
Sweetness, beyond sugar.
The sugars left in a brewed cup are too few to explain the sweetness tasters perceive, an SCA research article reports. Researchers are still studying where it comes from.
Mouthfeel and aftertaste.
Mouthfeel is the weight and texture of coffee in your mouth, including sensations such as drying. Body, the perceived weight, is one part of it. Neither is strength, which is how concentrated the drink is.
The finish, or aftertaste, is the flavour that stays after a sip.
Acidity.
Acidity is one part of a coffee’s sensory character. Its intensity describes how pronounced it is. Intensity alone does not tell you how much you will enjoy it.
How cuppers record a coffee.
In the descriptive assessment of the Coffee Value Assessment, cuppers select the sensory descriptors they perceive. They record the overall intensity of fragrance/aroma, flavour/aftertaste and mouthfeel, as well as sweetness and acidity. Quality is rated separately in the affective assessment.
Tasting at home.
Smell the coffee, take a sip once it is comfortable to drink, and notice what stays afterwards. Taste it again as it cools.
In research funded by the SCA’s Coffee Science Foundation, liking of black coffee peaked between 58 and 66 °C. Let a fresh cup cool a little before you judge it.
Start with ordinary words, then look for more precise ones. A first impression may be fruity, floral, nutty or roasted, and then remind you of a particular fruit or food.
The SCA publishes olfactory examples for the descriptor categories of its Coffee Value Assessment. They help tasters practise naming what they smell.
Notice the texture.
Then pay attention to the weight and texture of the drink: light or rounded, coating or drying.
La Esperanza Colombia, for example, combines tamarind, cacao and blackberries with a velvety texture and a round body.
Read the wheel.
On the Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel, words that touch were seen as closely related by the experts behind it. A gap means they were seen as less closely related. The wheel’s colours were chosen to represent its words. If a flavour reminds you of a red fruit you cannot name, the SCA suggests scanning the red words.
Description first, preference second.
Note what you perceive, then what you enjoy. Use those observations when you choose another coffee.
Cuppers, too, differ in what they prefer, research published in the SCA’s 25 Magazine found.
Sources.
- Specialty Coffee Association: How to Use the Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel in Eight Steps
- Specialty Coffee Association: CVA in Action (affective assessment) · Coffee Decoded: What’s the Difference Between Coffee Body and Mouthfeel?
- Specialty Coffee Association: CVA in Action: Descriptive Assessment · Coffee Value Assessment
- Specialty Coffee Association, 25 Magazine Issue 22: How Sweet Coffee Tastes! Towards an Understanding of Coffee Sweetness
- Ristenpart et al., 2022: Impact of beverage temperature on consumer preferences for black coffee · Coffee Science Foundation: Output
- Specialty Coffee Association: Coffee Value Assessment: Olfactory Examples
- Specialty Coffee Association, 25 Magazine Issue 18: How Do Cuppers Cup? Evaluating and Evolving Elements of the SCA Cupping Protocol
- CEBE Coffee Roasters: product pages for our six coffees