Gianfranco's Notes

    Flavours & Sensory

    3 min readUpdated Jul 8, 2026

    Coffee Flavours and Sensory Study

    #coffee/sensory #coffee/theory #note

    Sensory analysis is the foundation of understanding specialty coffee. Developing a palate is about learning what to look for and connecting taste perceptions to specific descriptors.

    1. What We Look for in Specialty Coffee

    When evaluating a cup of coffee, the focus is on balance and quality rather than just intensity:

    • Sweetness: The primary indicator of ripe coffee cherry harvesting and proper extraction. It presents as caramel, brown sugar, honey, or fruit sugars.
    • Acidity Quality: The type of acidity (e.g., malic like apples, citric like lemons, tartaric like grapes or stone fruit). It should be crisp, juicy, and pleasant, not sour or vinegar-like.
    • Body / Mouthfeel: The tactile weight and texture of the coffee on the tongue. It ranges from tea-like (light) to silky, creamy, or heavy/velvety.
    • Aftertaste / Finish: How long the pleasant flavours linger after swallowing, and whether they remain sweet or turn dry and bitter.
    • Balance: The harmony between sweetness, acidity, and bitterness. No single attribute should overwhelm the others.

    2. Flavour Categories and the Sensory Wheel

    Flavours are grouped into primary sensory categories based on the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) flavour wheel:

    • Fruity: Berries (blueberry, raspberry), stone fruits (peach, apricot), citrus (lemon, orange), and tropical fruits (mango, passion fruit). Common in natural process coffees.
    • Floral: Delicate notes like jasmine, lavender, rose, or bergamot. Highly characteristic of washed Ethiopian Geisha and light roasts.
    • Sweet / Cocoa: Chocolate (milk, dark), caramel, honey, maple syrup, and vanilla. Found in many Central and South American coffees.
    • Nutty: Almond, hazelnut, peanut, or pecan. Often associated with Brazilian and roasted bean profiles.
    • Spiced: Cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, or black pepper.
    • Green / Vegetative: Herbal, grass-like, or pea-shoot notes. Often indicates under-development during roasting or under-extraction.
    • Sour / Fermented: Winey, boozy, vinegar, or yeast. Common in anaerobic or extended fermentation process coffees.

    3. How Tasting Works

    Tasting is a combination of gustation (tongue) and olfaction (nose):

    • Orthonasal Olfaction: Smelling the dry coffee grounds (fragrance) and the wet coffee crust during brewing (aroma).
    • Retronasal Olfaction: The aromas that travel from the back of the mouth to the nasal cavity while swallowing. This is how we perceive complex flavour descriptors (like "blueberry" or "jasmine").
    • The Slurp: Slurping coffee vaporizes the liquid into a fine mist, coating the entire tongue and sending aroma compounds directly to the retro-nasal passage.
    • Temperature Evolution: Coffee should be tasted across a temperature range:
      • Hot (60°C - 70°C): Body and sweetness are prominent.
      • Warm (50°C - 60°C): Acidity and fruit notes peak.
      • Cool (below 50°C): The cup's cleanliness and balance are revealed.

    4. References & Further Reading

    See Also

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