How to Read Coffee Tasting Notes: A Beginner's Guide

Someone messaged me a while back asking, half joking, whether we were putting actual mandarin in the bag. Fair question, I suppose, if you've never come across tasting notes before. We're not adding anything. Coffee just naturally tastes like a huge range of things depending on where it's grown and how it's handled, and tasting notes are just our attempt to describe that honestly.

What's actually going on when a bag says mandarin and marzipan

Those words describe what the coffee reminds you of, not what's in it. It's the same idea as describing a wine as tasting of blackberry. Nobody thinks there's fruit in the bottle, they understand it's a comparison. Coffee works the same way, we're just less used to talking about it like that.

Where the flavour actually comes from

A lot of it comes down to altitude. Coffee grown higher up tends to develop more sugar and acidity as it matures more slowly, which usually means brighter, fruitier flavour. Lower altitude coffee tends to come out rounder and nuttier. The variety of the plant matters too, in the same way grape variety shapes a wine, and so does how the fruit is removed from the bean afterwards. Washed coffee usually tastes cleaner and brighter, while natural process, where the bean dries inside the fruit, tends to come out sweeter and more fruit forward. Then roast level decides how much of any of that survives the final stage. Roast it too dark and you flatten most of it out.

How to actually notice it, rather than just read about it

Most of what we call taste is actually smell, so give the coffee a proper sniff before you even sip it, both the dry grounds and the brewed cup. Baristas slurp loudly when they're cupping coffee for a reason, it spreads the coffee across your whole palate and up into the back of your nose, which is where most of the actual flavour perception happens. Don't worry too much about pinning down the exact fruit either. Nobody's palate agrees on mandarin versus satsuma, and that's fine. Getting the general category, citrus, stone fruit, chocolate, nutty, is the useful bit. And give it a minute to cool. Coffee changes as it drops in temperature, and a lot of the more interesting notes only really show up once it's gone from scalding to just warm.

The easiest way to actually learn this

Taste two very different coffees back to back. That contrast teaches you more in five minutes than any amount of reading. Ours happen to work well for this. Lekker Brew is the Brazil and Colombia blend, mandarin, marzipan, white chocolate, sweet and rounded with low acidity. Bliksem Brew is the single origin from Yacuanquer in Colombia, redcurrant, jelly, milk chocolate and orange zest, noticeably brighter with more acidity up front. Brew them the same way, one after the other, and you won't need me to tell you which notes are which. It'll just be obvious.

Want to try that comparison yourself? Grab both through Subscribe and Save, or pick up our bundle to taste the full range in one go.