Coffee Terminology

Any serious coffee connoisseur knows that the occasional dip into the reservoir of unheard-of flavors and blends is a necessary step in developing a coffee-conscious palate. I’m sorry; I don’t believe I’m licensed to say that. I’ll start again.

Caffeine addicts love coffee. I am one such addict, but I don’t have any authority to tell you that a specific coffee is leathery or earthy or citrusy. In fact, I am often flummoxed by the chalkboards at Starbucks that advertise these qualities. This is straight from the Starbucks website:

Ubora Blend: Elegant, with floral, citrus, and herbal notes.
Komodo Dragon Blend: Deep, full-bodied with a complex flavor that is bold and unanticipated.

Don’t get the wrong idea: I’m all for sporadic deviation from the quotidian cup of Joe. But where on earth do coffee connoisseurs get their terminology?

For the purposes of this article, I’ll be using my neologism mochaphile in lieu of “coffee connoisseur/enthusiast/addict.” In all fairness, wine lovers get to be oenophiles, but no lexicon has thus far showed any love for the caffeine-inclined. (I wanted a more direct coffeephile, or perhaps cafephile, but both are a bit clumsy.)

Now back to the point. I have tried to understand how coffee could have “floral notes,” as there is not exactly a standard medium of comparison for this term. I used to know some people who ate flowers all the time, but now they’re living in secure sanatoriums. I suppose that “floral” could have a hidden meaning, though: “notes” obviously comes from a clever synonymous pairing with “tones,” in this case meaning “flavors” and “musical sounds.” Perhaps it is nothing more than an effort to pander to the uninitiated by using cryptic descriptions.

But I am forgetting a key detail here. As in oenology, it is any wine glass’s rite of passage into the connoisseur’s mental log via gentle swirling under the olfactory glands, wherein the professional imbiber of fermented grape juice engages in foreplay with the aroma before making love to the distinct flavor of the wine. It’s the aroma, folks, that probably gives Ubora Blend its advertised “floral notes,” not an undertone in the taste.

Still, I can’t bring myself to fully experience “elegant” coffees as they were made to experience. Here is how my descriptions might take shape, were I to write these things for Starbucks:

Ubora Blend: It’s pretty good. Tastes like coffee.
Komodo Dragon Blend: It’s like regular coffee, only stronger.

I haven’t had any Ubora in recent memory, but I have had Komodo, which does actually have a pungent bite to it. Usually, though, even in my keenest states of awareness, I cannot discern any number of Starbucks flavors. That’s why I hardly ever pay attention to the currently brewing blend – I just order a “grande coffee” and it tastes the same as always. Yukon is just like Breakfast Blend, which has a striking semblance to Gazebo. Fellow Starbucks fanatics, and especially mochaphiles: please don’t send me any angry comments. I’m really trying. But I just can’t seem to place flavors as well as others. Take, for example, the Folgers Gourmet Blends Chocolate Truffle I’m sipping right now. Here is my professional description as a self-professed mochaphile: “It’s like dark chocolate… only coffee.”

Radically different flavors, of course, are another story. Drip-brewed Maxwell House and Dunkin’ Donuts coconut coffee are extremely different. For that matter, I could distinguish Wawa, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, and 7-11 coffees in a blind taste test. But Folgers and Maxwell House? They’re practically the same thing. It’s those subtleties I have a hard time grasping.

That’s why, at least in my eyes, oenology seems like an impossible science. There is no doubt in my mind that the true connoisseur finds sheer bliss in a cask of Amontillado or in a 1932 Cabernet Sauvignon. I know that coffee is entirely different from wine, but I’ve been drinking all kinds of hot caffeinated beverages for years now and I still can’t draw the line between some of them. Maybe the best oenophiles are born with freakishly sensitive taste buds.

Just for fun, here’s some real live coffee terminology (thanks to the Lucid Cafe’s Coffee Glossary):

• brackish. A taste fault giving the coffee a salty and alkaline sensation.
• carbony. An aromatic sensation created by a slightly volatile set of heterocyclic compounds found in coffee’s aftertaste that produces either sensations similar to a creosol-like substance or a burnt substance.
• earthy. An odor taint in the coffee beans that produces a dirt-like taste sensation.
• finish. If aroma is the overture of the coffee, then finish is the resonant silence at the end of the piece.
• grady. A background flavor of dirtiness but not qualifying as dirty.
• malty. An aromatic sensation created by a moderately volatile set of aldehydes and ketones that produces sensations reminiscent of toasted grains.
• medicinal. A detrimental coffee taste sensation characterized by a penetrating sour sensation on the posterior sides of the tongue. (Robitussin Home Brew, anyone?)
• nippy. A secondary coffee taste characterized by a predominantly sweet, nipping sensation at the tip of the tongue.
• oniony. Has a flavor of onions. (as in Folgers Onion Deluxe)
• peasy. A disagreeable taste of very fresh green peas. (Green Giant Blend)
• potato. Has an unpleasant taste of raw potato.
• rubbery. A taste fault giving the coffee beans a highly pronounced burnt-rubber character.
• scorched. A odor taint that gives the coffee brew a slight aftertaste of phenolic and pyridine character with an underdevelopment of the caramelization of compounds.
• strawy. A taste taint that gives the coffee bean a distinct hay-like character.
• sweetly floral. An aromatic sensation created by a highly volatile set of aldehydes and esters that produce sweet fragrance sensations reminiscent of a flower. (Ah, so I was right about this.)
• turpeny. An aromatic sensation created by a slightly volatile set of hydrocarbon compounds and nitrites found in coffee’s aftertaste that produces either resinous sensations similar to turpentine or medicinal sensations similar to camphor.
• twisty. A coffee showing differing negative characteristics in a single cup or from cup to cup. A coffee with unreliable characteristics. (What a scientific-sounding term.)
• woody. A taste fault giving the coffee beans a distinct, unpleasant wood-like character.

I think (with grady as my evidence) that mochaphiles are out to get us coffee laymen with nonsensical terms. Plus, they obviously eat hay and mold and dirt and wood and old tires, otherwise there would be no comparative factor for the coffee they drink.