DavecUK not sure I agree with too much of this Dave.
Sensory stuff is hard, and the SCA lexicon was close to a 10 year project all in all, which did have a fair bit of input from a wide range of people, and tried to take into account cultural differences too. Of course there are limitations to this kind of approach, and it doesn’t make sense to everyone.
These concepts are widely used as a way of trying to build a more common language and it’s pretty crucial in things like Q grading, both for calibration of panel members and for training people into that role etc.
Not sure what you mean about ‘industry speak’ when it comes to flavour notes? Not really sure why we would ask people with no experience of tasting to be in charge of describing how something tastes either? It’s a bit like anything really. Ask 100 people what they think and unless they have some basis for at least an agreement on definition of terms, you’ll get 100 different answers. I don’t really see how that would help us move anything forward.
Most of our ideas in speciality coffee deriving from SCA standards for things like strength and extraction yield ‘ideal’ ranges come from surveys that the SCA and others have been carrying out for well over half a century with members of the public. It doesn’t mean that they are ‘correct’ or that they represent the best, but it does try to represent general preferences of the public. The SCA definitely does not get everything right, as an AST myself, that can be frustrating at times, but I do think that they do a good job of at least trying to build an evidence base in what is a tricky area of our business.
I do agree with you that it’s useful for people to know what is good with milk and that kind of things but also these are completely subjective. Take our Rocko description for example. It talks about how the coffee takes on a resemblance to a strawberry milkshake in milk. For every person that thinks that sounds amazing, there is another that will say that to them it tastes like the milk is off. All the can ever say is how the coffee tastes from our perspective and what appeals to us about it.
I think that the best we can do is to try to cover as many bases as we can and let people gravitate towards what makes most sense to them. For us, that means a few words on the label to give people an idea of what they can expect flavour-wise, then a more narrative account on the website that talks about how we find the coffee when using different brew method and finally, a chart on there that looks at things like body, finish, acidity, and all that stuff. The hope is that everyone will have some way that they are agreeable to for finding out what they might be able to expect if they buy those particular beans.
All the really matters of course is whether YOU like the coffee or not. All we can do is try to give you as much information as we can so that you have expectations we can meet when the coffee arrives. Use what makes sense to you and ignore the rest would tend to be my advice.
