Coffee Glossary
  

1. Acerbic: A taste fault in the coffee brew giving an acrid and sour sensation on the tongue.
2. Acidity: The sharp lively quality characteristic tasted mainly at the tip of the tongue. It is NOT the same as bitter or sour, coffees are low in acidity.
3. Aftertaste: Residue remaining in the mouth after swallowing, from carbony to chocolaty to spicy to turpeny. A taste taint that gives coffee beans a less acidy taste and greater body.
4. Arabica, Coffea Arabica:  The earliest cultivated species of coffee tree. It produces approximately 70% of the world's coffee. The species name assigned by European botanist Linnaeus while categorizing the flora of the Arabian peninsula.
5. Aroma: A sensation which is difficult to separate from flavor. The aroma contributes to the flavors we discern on our palates, such as "floral" or "winy" characteristics. 
6. Aromatic: Designates a coffee that fully manifests the aroma characteristic of its nature and origin.
7. Baggy: An off-taste often observed in cups from weakly roasted coffees that have been stored for a long time in unsuitable conditions.
8. Baked: A taste and odour taint, generally unpleasant characteristic of having an over-baked taste in an over-heated coffee: cooked, baked or burnt.
9. Balanced: A term of general evaluation, balance means that no one quality overwhelms all others. 
10. Basic tastes: Sweet, sour, salt, and bitter. Characterized respectively by sucrose, tartaric acid, sodium chloride, and quinine.
11. Bitter: The taste perceived at the back of the tongue. Dark Roasts are intentionally bitter. Over-extraction can cause a bad bitterness. 
12. Black beans: Dead coffee beans that have dropped from the trees before harvesting. Used as the basic unit for counting imperfections in grading coffee on. Has a detrimental effect on coffee taste.
13. Blend: A mixture of two or more individual varietals of coffee. 
14. Body: It is the viscosity, heaviness, thickness, or richness that is perceived on the tongue. A good example would be the feeling of whole milk in your mouth, as compared to water.
15. Bouquet: The total aromatic profile, as a result of the volatile organic compounds present in the fragrance, aroma, nose, and aftertaste of coffee.
16. Brew: Specific taste of a good home brew prepared properly.
17. Bright: Tangy acidity is often described as bright. 
18. Briny: The salty sensation caused by excessive heat after brewing.

19. Caffeine:  An alkaloid derived from coffee (or tea) and used in medicine for a mild stimulant or to treat certain kinds of headache. 
20. Caramelly: An aromatic sensation created by a moderately volatile set of sugar carbonyl compounds found in coffee's nose that produce sensations reminiscent of either candy or syrup.
21. Cherry: Term for the fruit of a coffee tree. A cherry contains two coffee beans or one peaberry.
22. Chocolaty: An aromatic in a brew's aftertaste, reminiscent of unsweetened chocolate or vanilla
23. City or full city roast: "City" is a roast that is slightly darker than the American roasting norm. "Full City" is  darker than norm; sometimes patches of oil on surface.
24. Clean: Cupping or tasting term describing a coffee sample that is free from flavor defects.
25. Creamy: Moderately high level of oily material suspended in the coffee beverage. The result of pronounced amounts of fats present in the beans.
26. Crema: The golden colored foam that appears on top of a shot of espresso. The crema makes a 'cap' which helps retain the aromatics and flavors of the espresso. Crema is due to colloids and lipids forced out into an emulsion under the pressure of a espresso machine. 
27. Cupping: Tasting coffee is called "cupping". 
28. Dark: Roasting term meaning dark brown beans with a shiny surface; equivalent to French roast
29. Decaffeinated taste: process taste often found in decaffeinated coffees. Due to something lacking or to additional flavours.
30. Decaffeination process: Coffees are decaffeinated in their green state. Three processes are used: the traditional or European process, the water-only or Swiss-Water Process, and the CO2/water or Sparkling Water Process. All are consistent in removing all but a 2% to
31. Earthy: An unclean smell or taste that can be specific, such as sourness or mustiness, or a more generalized taint that reminds one of eating dirt. The spicy "of the Earth" taste of Indonesian coffees.
32. Exotic: Unusual aromatic and flavor notes, such as berry or floral
33. Fermented: A  taste fault in the coffee beans producing a highly displeasing sour sensation on the tongue.
34. Flavor: is the overall perception of the coffee in your mouth. Acidity, aroma, and body are all components of flavor
35. Flavour defects: Harshness and sourness are two of the most widely used negative epithets. Harshly flavoured coffees are unpleasantly bitter, sharp, or irritating. Terms like grassy, hidey, barn yard fermented, musty, and Rioy (medicinal) describe even more dramatically undesirable flavour characteristics.
36. Froth or Foam: Milk which has been made thick and foamy by aerating it with hot steam. 
37. Fruity: An aromatic sensation. Either a sweet sensation reminiscent of citrus fruit or a dry sensation reminiscent of berry fruit found in coffee's aroma.
38. Full: An intensity description of bouquet is present at a moderately pronounced strength.
39. Good cup quality: Coffee with good, positive all-round characteristics.
40. Hard Bean: Coffee grown at  high altitudes, 4000 to 4500 feet. Coffee grown above 4,500 feet is referred to as strictly hard bean.
41. Heavy roast: Coffee beans roasted to a very dark brown, with a shiny surface.
42. Light: A moderately low level of solid material suspended in the coffee beverage. Result of fine particles of bean fibre and insoluble proteins present in perceptible amounts.
43. Mature Coffee:  Coffee held in warehouses for two to three years, it has been held longer than old crop coffee, but not as long as aged or vintage coffee.
44. Medium roast: Coffee beans roasted to the American norm.
45. Mellow: A primary coffee taste sensation created as salts in the coffee combine with sugars to increase the overall sweetness. Mellow ranges from mild to delicate. Northern Italian Roast: Medium brown( hazel nut color) with no oil on the bean’s surface, good light roast flavor.
46. Nutty: An aromatic sensation, reminiscent of roasted nuts.
47. Oily: A term sometimes used to denote a coffee that has a roasted oily taste due to a high degree of roasting or an oily coffee having a greasy but not rancid taste.
48. Old: A roasted coffee that has been left for too long changes aroma and acquires a specific and disagreeable flavour.
49. Old Crop: differs from aged or vintage and mature coffees in two ways: First, it has not been held for as long a period, and second, it may not have been handled with as much deliberateness. Depending on the characteristics of the original coffee and the quality of the handling, old crop may or may not be considered superior in cup characteristics to a new crop version of the same coffee.
50. Primary coffee taste sensations: Acidy, mellow, winey, bland, sharp and soury.
51. Process taste: This term reflects a number of defects. Some technological treatment of coffee can develop well-identified off-flavours: cooked, caramelized, cereal, and acrid.
52. Quakers:  Defective coffee beans that fail to roast properly, remaining stubbornly light-colored.
53. Rancid: Taste faults giving the coffee brew a highly displeasing taste.
54. Rich or Richness: Partly refers to body, partly to flavour; at times even to acidity. The term describes an interesting, satisfying fullness. The Sumatran should be the richest in body and the Yemen Mocha should have the richest acidity.
55. Rioy: A taste fault giving the coffee beans a highly pronounced medicinal character. Result of continued enzyme activity when coffee beans remain in the fruit and the fruit dries on the shrub. Usually associated with natural processed coffees grown in Brazil. Typified by coffees grown in the Rio district of Brazil.
56. Roasty: Relative strength of the natural components of the coffee flavour is modified by the degree of roasting, resulting in high character.
57. Robusta: High in caffeine and rather bitter. Generally less acid and less aromatic than Arabica coffee. Often slightly woody.
58. Secondary coffee taste sensations: Piquant to nippy, mild to delicate, tangy to tart, soft to neutral, rough to astringent, hard to acrid.
59. Soft Bean: Describes coffee grown at relatively low altitudes (under 4,000 ft). Beans grown at lower altitudes mature more quickly and produce a lighter, more porous bean.
60. Southern Italian roast: Darkest possible brown with large amounts of oil on the beans a Light French Roast.
61. Supplemental coffee taste sensations: Common to dark roast coffees that are pungent due to bitter replacing a sweet in the taste modulation ranging form creosol to alkaline.
62. Varietal: The term used for the coffee that comes from a geographical region. A Sumatra, Kenya, Costa Rica or a Java are varietals. The term varietal is actually a misnomer, since Arabica coffee plants are basically of the same species.
63. Winy: A flavor reminiscent of fine red wine. Kenya is one of the most notables.
64. Washed coffee, Wet-Processed , Wet Method:  Coffee prepared by removing the skin and pulp from the bean while the coffee fruit is still moist. Most of the world's great coffees are processed by the wet method, which generally intensifies acidity.
65. Whole-Bean Coffee:  Coffee that has been roasted but not yet ground.