I’m not particularly a fan of fruit co-ferments, although I’m not going to make a fuss if one is served to me.
I’d probably describe these more as fruit-infused coffees than as a tasting note. There’s nothing wrong with that if people enjoy them, and clearly plenty do, which is why they seem to be popping up more and more these days.
But it does raise a question about how we talk about flavour. If fruit is introduced during processing, is it really a coffee with natural fruit notes, or is it a coffee that has been given a fairly enthusiastic fruity nudge?
It feels a bit like saying a scone has “notes of strawberry” after we have put strawberry jam in the recipe.
Lovely? Yes. Enjoyable? Quite possibly.
A pure expression of the flour, or in this case the bean? Sadly, that may have got a bit lost somewhere between the fruits and the cupping table.