What is Coffee Flavor?

Coffee flavor is one of the world's most complex but fascinating subjects. Like wine tasters, coffee cuppers discover flavor through smell and their natural gift of taste buds. Simple, you might think? Not quite! It is almost impossible to describe a flavor using one adjective. 

Coffee cuppers pay attention to the aroma, acidity, body, sweetness, and bitterness to award a flavor profile to a particular coffee breed. Ideally, a well-balanced coffee has no single flavor component overwhelming the others and is often more highly graded than others.  

So, this article is not about favored flavored coffee but rather about coffee flavor or taste notes. And why are Solai Coffee's Kenyan coffee beans celebrated for their fruity flavor profile? Let's find out!

Well-Balanced Coffee Flavor

The flavor is the "quality that remains" after considering coffee beans' body, acidity, aroma, bitterness, and sweetness. 

Profiling tastes is not the lightest work; professional tasters (coffee cuppers) attach universally accepted coffee taste descriptions to simplify things and help you improve your tasting skills! 

Some familiar taste descriptions include;

• Rich – to describe fully-bodied coffee beans
• Fruity- an essence of citrus or berries
• Complex – multi-flavored.
• Winey – used to describe coffee flavors similar to red wine. 

Consider the pumpkin spice flavor, a seasonal blend that combines cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg to take your regular cup to new heights of festive delight. Brewers create a unique taste experience that can only wow your taste buds with pumpkin spice on Coffee.

What is the Coffee Flavor Wheel?

The coffee flavor wheel is a valuable tool that professional coffee cuppers use to profile coffee flavors. Starting from the innermost part, which contains primal aromas and flavors, the wheel showcases varying intensities of smell and taste, allowing us to find the correct terms for flavor profiling. 

Coffee Tastes Notes

The most distinct coffee flavors are bitter, sweet, fruity, floral, and roasted.

• Sweetness

Did you know coffee beans have sugar in them? Sweetness is among the most appreciated flavors in Coffee and the diverse foods and drinks we love. As a synonym for good tasting, sweetness is an excellent value in coffee tasting. Brown sugar is a significant subcategory among sweet coffee flavors that leaves a rich, full, round, and sweet aromatic profile (often associated with a degree of darkness).

• Bitterness

Did you know caffeine is inherently bitter? We all love coffee beans for their rich caffeine content, but often, we are overwhelmed when bitterness dominates the other qualities of a regular cup. In Coffee, bitterness is a valuable asset that, under the proper roasting and brewing conditions, brings a vital balance to our Coffee!

• Floral

While aroma plays a significant role in flavor perception, seasoned cuppers agree that floral notes are distinguished more by their taste than their scent. The most common floral flavors include rose, jasmine, and black tea.

• Roasted

Have you ever heard of the legend of the priest in Ethiopia who was given coffee beans by a local pastor and cast them into the fire? The smell of roasted beans filled the air with the aroma that won their hearts. Ideally, the roast and aroma of Coffee are some of the most ancient flavor profiles attached to the coffee bean. 

Today, roasted coffees are cereal, roast, or smoky variants that usually come alive when combined with different flavor notes.

• Fruitiness

You may know coffee beans are primarily seeds found in coffee cherries. Some coffee flavors have a fruitiness impression that can take the dried fruit, tropical fruit, cherry, or berry categories. The Kenyan coffee beans, for instance, are known for their fruity flavor profiles. 

Kenyan Coffee Beans Shine with Fruitiness Flavor!

Kenyan coffee beans boast some of the finest flavor profiles in the world. These beans thrive in Kenya's fertile volcanic soils and highlands and are known for their bright acidity, full body, and vibrant/fruity flavors. 

The excellent flavor profile is due to the exceptional climatic conditions and Kenyan farmers' hands-on processing techniques. 

Excellent Conditions

The Kenyan highlands are known for their excellent altitude, soil profile, and tropical rainfall, forming the perfect coffee sanctuary for the Arabica and Robusta coffee variants.

Hands-on Processing Methods

Kenyan coffee farmers use the wet method to process their coffee beans. It involves carefully removing cherry pulp from coffee beans using water before drying to get a clean, bright product with distinct acidity but elevated fruitiness.

Excellent Flavor Notes

Kenyan coffee beans have a vibrant and complex flavor profile that many coffee enthusiasts appreciate around the globe. The tasting notes are lively acidity reminiscent of citrus fruits like oranges and lemons, followed by an impression of fruity notes of red currant, blackcurrant, or tomato-like tastes.

Wet processing method