When Do Green Flavour Descriptors Tip Into Vegetal?

Platypus

Interested to hear other people’s thoughts on the greener taste in coffee . At what point would you consider the “greener flavours such as green tea/green apple, have tipped the balance into under developed ,under roasted notes?
Do you find they generally disappear completely or just mellow with resting into something more acceptable but still not ideal?
I sometimes seem to taste a vegetal twang not just in my own roasts but those purchased online as well. I’ve just bought a very nice Kenyan that is definitely a medium roast , rested for 10 days and has notes of lime / cherry candy and blackcurrant. It’s good but I can definitely taste a greener element in the background and to me it’s not a nice zesty lime flavour. I will rest them some more but am now wondering if it’s just “me” and not the bean ?

MWJB

Under-development is a relative term, when talking about roast level. You can have an under-developed medium roast and a developed very light roast.

A descriptor should assume proper development at whatever roast level is targeted, so not an artifact of intended roast level.

Green apple to me is a sharpish acidity, tangy, but not quite into the proper tart region (like passion fruit, redcurrant, hibiscus, rhubarb). If you’re getting this it doesn’t sound like an under-developed roast, under-developed roasts tend to have muted acidity & sweetness and are savoury/umami.

Less clean/clear notes in a brew might be down to slightly low extraction (in between tangy/sour range and balanced, clean extraction), or high side of normal/too fine a grind? Kenyans are more likely than most other origins to ‘run away’ extraction-wise. So maybe try going a tad coarser & see if that helps?

Platypus

Thank you @ MWJB, I’ll coarsen the grind and see if this improves things.

Platypus

@MWJB Can I ask if you use the SCA flavour wheel and how useful you find it?

MWJB

Platypus No I don’t. It’s not clear which flavour notes are ‘notes’ as opposed to defects (whether from processing, roasting, or brewing).
How do acrid, ashy, petroleum, skunky, butyric acid coffees get a SCA cupping score at all? Who would grow & hope to sell that?

Plus it doesn’t matter a stuff to me if I can’t identify a flavour, as long as I like it. I find the over enthusiasm for identifying a particular flavour in coffee as a bit like an episode of “Give us a clue”. :-)

Stone fruit? Peach? Apricot? Nectarine! On the nosey! :-)

The SCA (and the SCAA before it) is a weird amalgam of technical specs (some of which are largely ignored/misunderstood/contradicted) and ‘woo woo’.

Broad, real-world, accessible descriptors are very useful, when taken as just that.

Platypus

MWJB Thanks, I’m actually quite relieved to read this 😆