How to Read a Coffee - Part 1: Fundamentals
By Dale Harris & Alex Scott
Flavour descriptors like 'blueberry cheesecake', 'raspberry candy' and other vape flavours make coffee sound delicious. They also risk erasing the people who grew it. We have chosen not to put flavour notes on our bags partly in reaction to nostalgic but simplistic flavours used to market and sell coffee, and to make space for more nuanced conversations, reflective of quality and context, rather than a simplistic, reductive and a purely hedonistic take on what coffee is. This is not a popular choice, and we try to juggle it with nuance and respect.
Just like wine, the more times you taste intentionally, along with information around origin, variety and processing style, the greater an understanding you develop of what each part might mean for a cups flavour profile, and the more you learn about your own preferences.
We deeply believe that the information we do share on our packaging (producer, region, variety, process, price) can allow a broad understanding of the flavours a coffee is likely to present, if you’ve had the opportunity to explore a range of coffees with good information, or of someone taking the time to share their coffee knowledge with you alongside a tasting.
The following is a short and rough guide to interpreting not just our labels, but those from any coffee roaster around the world to help you find coffees you might enjoy.
Roast Date
Freshness matters. Volatile aromatics escape within weeks. After three months, you're tasting oxidation, not origin If you can’t find a roast date on the bag, or it’s over 3 months, don’t buy it, there is something better available nearby. Fresh doesn’t however always mean better. Very fresh coffee can be harder to extract, less consistent from cup to cup, or have a slightly green/sour flavour from excess CO2. All of this is exaggerated when we’re brewing espresso.
As a general rule we’d suggest brewing filter coffee from 3-5 days after roast. For espresso, a longer rest time will get you more consistency. Somewhere from 10-20 days from roast most CO2 has escaped and the coffee will be easier to dial in. Fresher espresso than this can be truly delicious, just a little harder to maintain consistency of flavour.
Different roasting machines, and styles will have different peak freshness zones. With our roasts in particular we find weeks 3-6 offer a real sweet spot.
Strength and/or Roast Level
We hate the word 'strength': it means different things at every roastery. Strength of coffee can be accurately used to describe concentration (measured as total dissolved solids, or TDS), a result of brewing recipe and grind size (Extraction), more than the coffee beans used. Coffee is only as "strong" as you brew it.
Different companies use strength to describe different things – often perceived intensity, or most commonly roast level. This is a useful description, though always think of it in context: one roaster’s medium is another’s dark, and the same ‘colour’ roast of a coffee from Kenya applied to a coffee from Brazil won’t yield the same flavours. A small handful of roasteries will share measured roast colour information, like an agtron number, but this is a very technical measurement, and not especially useful for most drinkers.
That said, roast level is a useful indicator, and many people have a preference for drinking lighter or darker roasts.
Being able to see the coffee and judge it against your preferences is a great starting point, though not all pictures on packaging are reflective (and mostly bags with photos of beans on tend to have more generic and darkly roasted coffee). Most roasters either have a house style that matches their preferences and philosophy or they have a clearly marked set of roast styles that match customer group preferences. At Ithaka we prefer a light to medium roast that maximises flavour expression without introducing generic ‘roast’ flavours. Generally if you find a brand whose roast levels match your taste, you’ll be able to trust their judgement across a wide range of coffees, using the brand as a flavour/quality indicator.
An exception to this is companies that offer espresso and filter roasts, sometimes of the same coffee. In this case the roast curve or end temperature is adjusted to compensate for the high extraction capability of espresso machines, or the extra control/nuance possible in brewing coffee. We choose to roast each of our coffees to a single profile developed for it, believing that espresso technology and technique has come far enough that such compromises are less necessary, and destroy some of the potential of the coffee. This is an opinion and preference, not a fact.
Returning to the other common use, flavour intensity, with higher scores reflecting a coffee with deeper (potentially but not necessarily, darker) notes, or heavier textures, that could be tied to roast level, process or the country/region and terroir the coffee came from.
Where to Start
The best way to learn, is to get involved, tasting coffees. To go with this first post in the series, we have picked out some classic, strong, approachable coffees that should be a great entry point to your journey in coffee. Click the coffees below, to learn more, or ask about them in our tasting bar on your next visit!
