Do you feel like you need a coffee-to-English dictionary whenever you’re shopping for a new bag of beans? Light or dark, espresso or coffee, blend or single-origin, and what the heck are “flavor notes?” How do all the terms printed on the bag translate to what’s in your cup?
If you find yourself stuck on some of the descriptions on coffee packaging, don’t worry: After 20 years of writing and teaching about coffee, I am fairly fluent in the language, and I’m here to get you back on caffeinated track.
What do light, medium, and dark roast mean?
Many coffees are described by their roast levels, which usually appear as the descriptors “light,” “medium” or “dark.” Simply speaking, these levels don’t just refer to the appearance of your final, brewed coffee. They refer to the length of time the coffee beans spend inside the hot roaster. After coffee beans have been harvested and dried, when they’re ready to be roasted, they’re more of a greenish-beige color, like a pumpkin seed. The longer they’re in the roaster, the darker they become, thanks to sugar browning and caramelization that occur—similar to the way a cookie darkens in the oven.
In general, lighter roasts will taste, well, lighter: Some are described as more delicate or tealike, with floral, fruity, or tart flavors. Medium-roasted coffee may also have fruity undertones, often balanced with a chocolaty, nutty, or caramelly note. Darker roasted coffees taste more like the roast process itself: They may have prominent dark or bittersweet chocolate, smoke, cedar or spice notes, and fewer fruity or floral flavors.
Sometimes you’ll see less other roast descriptors, such as City, Full City, Vienna, French, or Italian. These are heritage terms that have been used in the coffee industry for generations (listed here in order of increasing darkness), and were popular up until the mid 1990s, though they’re less common today.
What’s the difference between coffee beans and espresso beans?
The short answer: nothing—but it’s complicated.
You remember that lesson in geometry class, “A square is a rectangle but not all rectangles are squares?” It’s like that: Espresso is a type of coffee, but not all coffee is espresso. Different beans might be better for auto-drip, French press, cold brew, or pour-over—you might grind the beans differently, use a different brewing device, and end up with a very different flavor in your cup.
Espresso is a finicky brew method, and it can make tart, fruity flavors overpowering. For that reason, a roaster might create an espresso blend by mixing fruity beans with ones that are chocolaty and nutty and may roast them slightly darker. “We keep in mind that the qualities of the blend will be accentuated to the nth degree when pulled as an espresso,” says Ant Walach, the cofounder and co-owner of Snowdrift Coffee in Roscoe, Illinois. Walach sources blendable coffees that have “treble, mid tones, and bass”—bright fruit, caramelly, and chocolate tones.
Eric Faust, founder and owner of Duluth Coffee Company, follows a similar strategy: His espresso blend features Brazilian, Ethiopian, and Guatemalan coffees. He says the Brazil is “creamy and tastes like chocolate, caramel, and nuts…Guatemala brings the bass note; it has a deeper level of chocolate and nuts but doesn’t have the creamy texture that Brazil has. Ethiopia is the sweet acidity and brings the complexity.”
That said, just because the bag’s labeled “espresso beans” doesn’t mean you have to use it for espresso—any coffee beans can be brewed as espresso, and any “espresso” beans can be brewed in your French press or drip machine. Often, espresso beans will be roasted darker, and they’ll be crafted to have a heavier, creamier body. If that’s your thing but you prefer to make pour-over coffee, you may find that espresso beans are right for you.
Blend or single-origin: What’s the difference?
The term single-origin means that the coffee beans are all from one place, as in the country, region, or farm where the coffee’s grown. A blend, on the other hand, usually comprises two or more coffees from different places, such as disparate growing countries.
Single-origin coffees are usually marketed with “taste of place” in mind—just like wines with the vineyard or village on the label. For example, my personal favorite coffees are from southern Colombia: I love the combination of bright fruit flavors, brown sugar sweetness and medium body that these coffees often have. Single-origin coffees have specific growing periods, so they may not be available all year round. This limited seasonality is part of what makes make each single-origin coffee special and worth getting excited for. By creating blends of different coffees, however, roasters can swap beans in and out of the recipe throughout the year while maintaining the same overall flavor profile.
What are “flavor notes?”
Do coffees really taste like the things the bag says they will? Blackberries, milk chocolate, toffee, papaya? Is that stuff in there?
No, flavor or tasting notes don’t describe additives—that’s the difference between flavor notes and flavored coffee—but they do describe some of the things the coffee might remind you of.
Coffee’s one of the most complex substances humans consume, right up there with red wine in terms of the number of flavor and aroma compounds it contains. The sheer number of compounds would be overwhelming to us, but we mentally associate the many tastes and smells with familiar sensations to help us make sense of the experience. The notes listed on your coffee bags are identified through a professional tasting process called cupping, which is a process coffee industry folks use to record both coffee quality and characteristics.
Will you taste all of what’s written on the bag? Maybe, maybe not. You might just taste coffee—that’s good too! Flavor notes can help you know whether a coffee might be to your liking: If the coffee you loved had notes of brown sugar and milk chocolate on the bag, you might seek out another one that’s described in a similar way.
What are natural, washed, or honey coffees?
These terms refer to the process that was used to remove the coffee seed (what we call the “bean”) from the coffee cherry it was grown in.
Washed coffees are the most common: The beans are removed from the fruit within 12 hours of harvest, and the coffee tends to be more balanced with sweetness, chocolate or nut flavors, and a hint of fruit. Natural coffees are beans that have been left inside the fruit until it’s completely dry like a raisin, which gives them a more pronounced fruity flavor, and a heavier body. Honey coffees are somewhere in between: The skin of the coffee fruit is removed, but the beans ferment and dry in a sticky, pulpy layer that can impart a wine or jam-like flavor.
What does the roast date mean?
Coffee isn’t perishable like milk or orange juice, so it doesn’t spoil outright: That’s why most bags won’t have an expiration date. Instead, coffee starts to taste a bit stale or faded if it sits around too long after roasting. For that reason, many roasters will list the day the batch was roasted, or a “best by” date that’s anywhere from six weeks to three months out from the roast date, to encourage folks to drink it while it’s freshest. Keeping your coffee beans in a dry, dark place can help them taste better for longer too.
