When people learn to taste coffee, they will focus on the description of positive flavors. For example, when describing a cup of coffee, they can blurt out "jasmine, lemon, strawberry, caramel, chocolate", but when they drink unpleasant tastes, they can only say "burnt, bitter, mixed, green".
In fact, to learn to appreciate the flavor of coffee, it is not only important to know how to taste the positive flavor of coffee, but also to learn to taste the negative flavor of coffee. Front Street believes that when tasting the flavor of a coffee, we usually start from three aspects: its volatile aroma, taste, and mouthfeel.
Green, in fact, what I want to express is the taste of unripe fruits (can be substituted with star fruit, green papaya) or green grass. This taste will not make people disgusted, but it will feel a little uncomfortable in the mouth and throat. Of course, it also depends on the intensity of the astringency. This flavor often appears in coffee beans with a large number of white beans, lightly roasted coffee beans, and brewed coffee that lacks the tail end.
The smell of over-fermentation may be unfamiliar to everyone, but if we talk about the smell of rotten apples, everyone should be aware of it. The fermentation smell is not considered a negative flavor, such as wine aroma and jackfruit flavor. But sometimes there really is only a thin line between the taste of jackfruit and rotten apple. The smell of over-fermented food is similar to that of rotten fruit, bean curd, or miso soup. This flavor is usually found in heavily fermented coffee beans.
Miscellaneous flavors include a lot of flavors. Anyway, as long as there is a little bit of unpleasant bitterness in the coffee, it can be added to the miscellaneous flavors. But the miscellaneous smell mentioned every time may not refer to the same miscellaneous smell, so it is necessary to distinguish what kind of miscellaneous smell you are talking about. For example:
The smell of earth does not mean that you should taste the smell of earth. It refers to the smell that the earth emits after it rains.
The wood smell is the smell emitted by compressed wood boards or wood chips. This smell is generally caused by over-extraction. It should be distinguished from the aroma of cypress and pine wood. Some Southeast Asian coffee beans will have the aroma of pine and cypress wood (fat), which is a positive flavor. The two are like the difference between plywood and agarwood.
Smoky smell, it feels like the smoke from burning wood. Usually caused by improper baking.
Rubber smell refers to the smell emitted by sulfides, specifically the pungent smell emitted by tires. This flavor is easily found in robusta coffee beans.
The medicinal taste actually refers to the bitter taste of plant alkaloids, and the concrete object is a white tablet. In coffee, many people mistake this taste for burnt bitterness.
Coke smell, the burnt and bitter taste that occurs after food is roasted and charred. Usually found in dark roasted coffee or over-extracted coffee.
A musty smell, this smell is like the smell emitted by clothes on rainy days. This flavor rarely appears in coffee. The reason why it appears in coffee may be that there are moldy beans, black beans in the coffee beans, or the cooked beans have been left for more than half a year.
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
