What Does Coffee Actually Taste Like?

Cherry Drops. Jasmine. Wulong Tea. Dark Chocolate.

You read the tasting notes, brew yourself a coffee and take a sip.

“Yep. Coffee.” Fair enough.

Coffee tasting notes can sometimes sound like someone got a little carried away. Especially when a bag starts talking about jasmine, peach, red berries and something called bergamot.

But tasting notes aren't there to make coffee sound fancy. They're actually a pretty useful way of understanding what's going on in your cup.

So what does “fruity” actually mean?

Coffee doesn't literally taste like someone has poured fruit juice into it.

It's about resemblance.

Depending on the variety, where it's grown, how it's processed and how it's roasted, coffee can naturally remind us of different flavours.

Fruit. Chocolate. Caramel. Tea. Flowers. Nuts. Spices.

When we say a coffee tastes like cherry, we're simply giving you something familiar to compare it to.

Usually, fruity coffees have a combination of sweetness and acidity - a bit like biting into a ripe strawberry. There's sweetness, but also a little sharpness that makes the flavour pop.

Our Rwanda Musaza Natural Lot 3, for example, has notes of cherry, golden raisin and caramel. It's juicy, sweet and seriously easy to drink.

And then there's chocolate

Chocolate notes are probably some of the easiest to recognise.

You'll often find them in coffees with more body and sweetness, particularly coffees from places like Brazil.

Our Bargate Roast is a good example: Cherry Drops, Dark Chocolate and Dried Fruit.

It's rich, sweet and creamy, designed to work brilliantly as espresso.

No flavour wheel required.

What about flowers?

This is where things can start sounding a little suspicious.

“Jasmine” in coffee? Yep.

Floral notes tend to show up in lighter, more delicate coffees, particularly some Ethiopian coffees.

Our Worka Chelbesa has notes of berries, jasmine and brown sugar. It's light, silky and bright, with a really clean finish.

It's not necessarily going to taste like you've dunked a bunch of flowers into your V60.

It's subtler than that. The aroma, sweetness and finish might simply remind you of something floral.

Then there's body

Body is basically how the coffee feels in your mouth.

Light and tea-like? Silky? Creamy? Heavy?

It's not really about flavour. It's texture.

Our Bargate Roast has a creamy, syrupy body that works particularly well through milk, while something like our Peru Wilder Garcia Geisha is much lighter and more tea-like.

Neither is better. They're just different.

You don't need to become a coffee expert

The best thing you can do with tasting notes is ignore them occasionally.

Make a coffee. Take a sip. See what you think.

Maybe you get cherry. Maybe you get chocolate. Maybe you get absolutely nothing except “this is good.”

That's fine. Then try another coffee.

Try them side by side. You'll start noticing that coffees from different places taste different, that natural coffees can be fruitier, and that lighter roasts can bring out more delicate flavours.

And suddenly those slightly strange words on the bag start making sense.

Cherry Drops. Jasmine. Dark Chocolate. Wulong Tea.

They're not instructions.

They're an invitation to pay a little more attention.

And once you do, you'll probably find there's a lot more going on in your morning coffee than you thought.

Brew something good. See what you find.