If you have ever looked at a bag of speciality coffee and thought, “I definitely don’t taste apricot jam or sherbet lemon,” then you are not alone.
Tasting notes are one of the things that can make speciality coffee feel exciting, but they can also make it feel confusing or even slightly intimidating. When you are just starting to explore better coffee at home, it can sometimes feel like everyone else is tasting something you are not.
This guide is here to make things simpler. No jargon. No pressure. Just a clear explanation of what tasting notes actually mean and how you should think about them when you are choosing and making coffee at home.
Tasting Notes Are Not Ingredients
Before we begin, we must start by addressing a common misconception: tasting notes are not ingredients.
When a cup of speciality coffee is labelled with notes like chocolate, caramel, or hazelnut, those flavours are not being added to the coffee. There are no flavourings, syrups, or hidden extras. The coffee is still just coffee.
Tasting notes are simply a way of describing what the coffee tastes like when you drink it. These flavours are inherent in the coffee bean itself as a result of the environment (soil, climate, altitude, processing method) in which a particular coffee is produced. These factors are collectively known as terroir, which is a term which is also widely used in the wine industry.
Why Tasting Notes Can Feel Overwhelming
Tasting notes can often feel a bit intimidating. This is in part because a lot of the time, they are very specific.
You might see something like apricot jam, sherbet lemon, rosewater, or berry compote. If you have never tasted one of those things before, the description is not particularly helpful. Instead of making the coffee easier to understand, it can make it feel harder to relate to.
The other thing that often gets overlooked is how personal taste actually is. Everyone has a completely different flavour memory based on what they have eaten and experienced over time.
One person might taste peach. Another might taste nectarine. Someone else might simply think the coffee tastes fruity. All of those responses are valid, and tasting notes are not something you need to match perfectly. They are just a guide to help you understand the overall direction of the coffee.
A Different Way To Think About Coffee Flavour
Rather than trying to identify very specific flavours straight away, it can be much easier to think about taste by starting to take note of a few simple things.
When you taste a coffee, instead of asking yourself whether you taste apricot or raspberry, try asking a few much simpler questions first:
- Is there a lot of acidity or just a little?
- Is the acidity smooth and pleasant or slightly sharp?
- Does the coffee taste naturally sweet or not very sweet at all?
- Does it feel light and delicate or heavier and fuller?
- Does the flavour fade quickly, or does it linger?
These questions make tasting coffee feel far more approachable, especially if you are just starting to explore speciality coffee at home.
Once you start recognising those fundamentals first, everything becomes much easier. You begin to notice patterns. Some coffees feel bright and lively. Some feel smooth and chocolatey. Some feel light and delicate, while others feel richer and heavier.
As that becomes more familiar, the flavour notes begin to feel more natural rather than overwhelming. Some tasting notes are very specific, like apricot jam or blood orange. Others are broader, like stone fruit, citrus, or chocolate. Both approaches are simply different ways of describing flavour.
Comparative Tasting Makes Everything Easier
One of the biggest challenges when learning to taste coffee is that it is very difficult to describe something in isolation.
If you only drink one coffee at a time, it can be hard to decide whether the acidity is high or low, whether the body is light or full, or whether the sweetness is strong or subtle. You have nothing to compare it to.
This is where comparative tasting makes a huge difference.
For example, tasting something smooth and chocolatey like Granary Blend next to something brighter like Rwenzori from Uganda immediately shows the difference between lower acidity and higher acidity. Once you notice that contrast, the idea of acidity becomes much easier to understand.
Comparative tasting does not need to be complicated either. You can easily set up a coffee tasting at home with a few different coffees and some small bowls or mugs.
We will soon be releasing a guide on how to properly taste coffee at home, so watch out for this!
There Is No Right Or Wrong Answer
This is probably the most important thing to remember.
If you drink a coffee and you do not taste the exact flavour on the bag, that does not mean you are doing anything wrong. It simply means your taste is different to that of the person who has written the descriptors displayed, and that is completely normal.
Some people recognise flavours quickly. Others take longer. Sometimes nothing comes to mind at all, and that is fine as well. The more coffees you try, the easier it becomes without you really noticing.
Learning to taste coffee is very similar to learning a new language. At first it feels unfamiliar, then slowly it starts to make more sense, and eventually you begin to recognise things naturally.
Final Thoughts
Tasting notes are not there to make coffee complicated. They are there to make it more interesting.
They are not ingredients. They are not something you need to match perfectly. They are simply a way of describing how a coffee feels when you drink it.
So the next time you buy a bag of coffee, pay attention to what you taste, trust your own experience, and enjoy the process of discovering what you like.
The more coffee you try, the easier it becomes. And most importantly, it should always feel enjoyable rather than intimidating.