Why We Don’t Have Flavour Notes

If you pick up a bag of Ithaka coffee, you may think something's missing.

There are no tasting notes.

No “blueberry cheesecake.”
No “milk chocolate, caramel, red apple.”
No carefully curated trio of flavours designed to guide or persuade you.

This is not an oversight. It is a choice. And like most of our choices, it comes from a belief that coffee is more interesting and more honest than three words can capture.

Coffee Is Not Static

Coffee is an agricultural product. It is shaped by soil, altitude, rainfall, variety, fermentation, drying, storage, roasting, brewing, water chemistry, equipment, and human decision-making at every stage.

It does not taste exactly the same in different cities.
It does not taste exactly the same brewed with different recipes.
It does not taste exactly the same on two different days.

And that variability is not a flaw.

It is the point.

When we reduce a coffee to a short list of flavour notes, we risk implying precision that doesn’t truly exist. We create an expectation that your cup should taste exactly like ours and if it doesn’t, something has gone wrong.

But nothing has gone wrong.

Coffee is expressive. Contextual. Alive. Its subtle shifts are part of its beauty. Just as a wine will taste different opened at home than it did in the vineyard, coffee reflects its environment and its maker.

We see that as a feature, not a bug.

The Problem With Tasting Notes

Flavour notes are not neutral.

They are shaped by cultural experience, access, and reference points. To describe a coffee as tasting like “blackcurrant cordial” or “pecan pie” assumes familiarity with very specific foods. Those references often emerge from Western culinary traditions and can unintentionally centre one cultural experience as the default.

There is also a deeper discomfort within coffee’s history. Coffee is a product rooted in countries that experienced colonial exploitation. For centuries, the people who grew coffee were excluded from its storytelling and value creation. Modern specialty coffee has made progress, but remnants of that imbalance remain.

When we reduce a coffee grown by a specific producer, in a specific place, with a specific history, to a handful of dessert analogies, we risk flattening that complexity. We risk turning human labour and landscape into marketing shorthand.

We are not suggesting that tasting notes are malicious. They have helped many people navigate coffee more easily. But we are interested in a different approach that centres fact over flourish.

Facts, Not Marketing Copy

Every piece of information on our bags is factual.

You will find:

• The producer or producing community
• The country and region
• The variety (or varieties)
• The processing method

These are not decorative details. They are the true story of the coffee.

If you have been shown how to read them, they tell you far more than “strawberry jam” ever could.

A washed coffee from Ethiopia grown at 2,200 metres above sea level carries certain structural tendencies: clarity, acidity, floral aromatics. A natural-processed Bourbon from Nicaragua at 1,100 metres will express something different: sweetness, texture, fruit weight, warmth.

Just as wine drinkers understand the broad strokes of a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc or an Argentinian Malbec, coffee too has its geography, its varieties, its patterns. These are not rigid rules but they are meaningful guides.

We would rather help you understand those building blocks than offer you a script.

Gentle Education

Our decision not to print tasting notes does not mean we don't talk about flavour. On the contrary, we care deeply about it. But we want it to be a conversation, not a statement.

In our café, in our newsletters, in person, we'll describe what we taste, explore how a Geisha differs from a Bourbon. How context changes perception. Why altitude matters. How fermentation influences texture. 

We want to share knowledge generously and gently not as gatekeeping, but as invitation.

Because when you understand that a coffee is a washed Ethiopian at 2,200 masl, you are not memorising marketing language. You are learning to see patterns. To recognise structure. To develop your own sensory framework.

And that framework will outlast any single bag.

Beauty in Complexity

At Ithaka, we believe complexity is something to celebrate, not conceal.

Coffee is rarely simple. It carries climate change, labour economics, biology, chemistry, culture, and craft within it. Three flavour notes cannot contain that.

So we choose to be honest.

We print what we know to be true.
We avoid promising what cannot be guaranteed.
We allow space for your experience to be your own.

You may taste peach.
You may taste citrus.
You may taste something you don’t yet have a word for.

That space between the facts the sensory and putting a word to it is where discovery happens.

And discovery, to us, is far more valuable than certainty.