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  • Are we too fussed about the notes in the coffee?

Please be warned! It is a long read.

Having drank coffee for decades from all types of coffee powders, brews and mostly cheap espresso machines, like the general public, we always found the comforts and luxuries the coffee shops bring. We considered the coffee from them as heavenly, can only be made in shops and can’t be replicated at home.

Fast forward towards Covid, I was mostly sick of instant powders, pour overs made from pre-ground and terrible black stuffs that came from
cheaper machines at home. I stuck to tea most of the time and stopped enjoying coffee from the shops.

Then, I struck Gold at the other coffee forum, Hoffman’s videos and here. Dave’s posts and videos were inspiring! The rest is a history.

Fast forward, post Covid (really 😉), my wife and I hate the coffee from the coffee shops. We don’t buy coffee any more. We make a great quality black and milk-based coffee consistently. The espressos keeps improving and, thanks to @MWJB the pour overs / brews are always consistently very good.

We, as a family (mostly self), have been running after various roasts, pay a lot of attention to the notes and so on. This is good as we get to drink and taste coffee from various locations, get a good bargain and decide what works the best or otherwise for us. We will continue this practice to get the best value for the money.

Early on, we paid a lot of attention to pick and differentiate the fruits notes. For an example, in the red fruits variety, if the bag mentions Cranberries and Peach, we try to think is it Cranberry or Peach or both (I don’t want to get into Conical vs Flat for clarity, burr size, machine dependency here.)

While the attempts to differentiate is a good learning exercise and helps develop a good knowledge about coffee and shot making / brewing, we have been thinking that all the attempts to pick the notes apart in red fruits (as an example) mentioned in the bag may be a little OTT or a little too fuzzy.

We think it’s, perhaps, not worth getting stressed about. Because, IMHO, it hard to differentiate between cranberry, peach, nectarine, blackberry in the cup - at least for us at home. May be, we lack the skill sets!

I think, it doesn’t matter as long as the notes mentioned in the bag suit our tastes. Because, we are ordinary folks trying to drink some good coffee at home and we are neither aspiring to be super tasters nor aim to run a business in this space.

What have we done about it? While buying beans, we generally avoid bags that mention, for example, gooseberry, rhubarb, even cranberry to some extent, lime soda and so on. As long as we can try to avoid these notes in the bags, we are happy.

The intent is not to offend anyone for whom all of these may be important. It is fine, if they are. Sorry, if the post comes out that way! 😊

This brings the title of the post! What do you guys think? Please share your views, experiences that gained in your coffee making and anything, which you find it as relevant to the post.

Thanks for reading!

    LMSC I tend to want a good cup of coffee with a rich coffee taste, well roasted enjoyable and if the flavour hints are there it can be enjoyable….some coffees are processed in such a way that flavour notes are very obvious and a few coffees definitely have those flavours within them, without any extended anaerobic processing.

    I have a special processed Columbian and the boozy sherry notes are so strong, that for me personally it works really well in a blend with a chocolatey Brazilian Daterra. As a pour over, the boozy notes are so pronounced it might be overwhelming for some.

    My pet hate is when roasters “incorrectly” try to maximise on flavour notes (rather than having coffee taste like coffee) by severely under roasting or light roasting without anywhere near enough development, due to inexperience. Probably because we are too fussed, or obsessed about the flavour notes…the wilder the better…there is a lot of marketing hidden away in those myriad flavour notes.

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        DavecUK changed the title to Are we too fussed about the notes in the coffee? .

        DavecUK I tend to want a good cup of coffee with a rich coffee taste, well roasted enjoyable and if the flavour hints are there it can be enjoyable….some coffees are processed in such a way that flavour notes are very obvious and a few coffees definitely have those flavours within them

        Exactly! This is what we all should aim to get / achieve in our efforts to make a good coffee at home. We probably lost track some where down the line in our coffee quest, focussing too much on the notes.

        DavecUK My pet hate is when roasters “incorrectly” try to maximise on flavour notes (rather than having coffee taste like coffee) by severely under roasting or light roasting without anywhere near enough development, due to inexperience.

        I would think this approach has, perhaps, misled us in scratching our head re-the notes to some extent.

        DavecUK Probably because we are too fussed, or obsessed about the flavour notes…the wilder the better…there is a lot of marketing hidden away in those myriad flavour notes.

        It’s a vicious circle; we chasing the notes; the marketing leveraging it to mention notes that we can chase; some think they can; the others can’t, and, so on!

        Some where on the back of our mind, many might know, this obsession or what ever we might want to call it, is not worth it or elusive or just a mirage.

                ive had some coffee where ive never tasted some of the notes, but then ive never eaten a dandelion so some of the floral stuff is lost on me

                Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                  I think there definitely a lot of marketing in tasting notes. You could call something citrus, or even better lemon, but yuzu sounds more exotic again.

                  It’s like any food menu that doesn’t have roast lamb, it has slow roasted lamb. Cheese & Onion crisps are mature cheddar cheese and caramelised onion.

                  However, just to contradict myself. I guess most roasters would have a coffee that could come under the red berries description, but they won’t all taste the same so describing one as cranberry and one as redcurrant might just be so there’s differentiation between roasters.

                  I personally go for a general style of coffee, usually avoiding anything with too many chocolate/nut flavours but won’t get too hung up on trying to find a specific flavour.

                    Cuprajake It quickly reminds me of a perception of what we think the tasting notes are.

                    Take for an example, Django’s Santa Ana. Very good roaster. Of their notes of blueberry, blackberry and vanilla, the blueberry and vanilla come out clearly.

                    My 83 year old MIL is enjoying these SO coffee with milk. She always smells the beans. Without any hesitation she said the beans and the coffee smell and taste of a jack fruit!

                    She asked me what the notes should be. I showed her the bag. She did 🙄

                    Go figure! 😂

                      I think I remember a James Hoffman video where he mentioned that tasting notes aren’t supposed to be specific, just a general guide. So a coffee saying ‘tastes like lemons or oranges’ isn’t actually going to taste of lemon or orange, just slightly sharp citrus notes.

                      I think milk makes an enormous difference also. My taste in black coffee / espresso is exclusively medium/dark roasts with chocolate/caramel tasting notes. However I really enjoy some of the lighter, fruitier roasts with milk that I find almost undrinkable as espresso.

                        I think I remember a James Hoffman video where he mentioned that tasting notes aren’t supposed to be specific, just a general guide. So a coffee saying ‘tastes like lemons or oranges’ isn’t actually going to taste of lemon or orange, just slightly sharp citrus notes.

                        I think milk makes an enormous difference also. My taste in black coffee / espresso is exclusively medium/dark roasts with chocolate/caramel tasting notes. I got into coffee through what I suppose would be classed as Italian style, so something that resembles it in some way is my preference.

                        However I really enjoy some of the lighter, fruitier roasts with milk that I find almost undrinkable as espresso.

                        Dusk It’s like any food menu that doesn’t have roast lamb, it has slow roasted lamb. Cheese & Onion crisps are mature cheddar cheese and caramelised onion.

                        I agree, marketing is a wonderful thing.

                        Giphy - marketing GIF

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                          Dusk I personally go for a general style of coffee, usually avoiding anything with too many chocolate/nut flavours but won’t get too hung up on trying to find a specific flavour.

                          Chocolate and nutty flavours are very good either as black or importantly with milk. They are also easy to dial in.

                          Dusk won’t get too hung up on trying to find a specific flavour.

                          I am glad a lot of us feel the same way.

                              Ernie1 I think milk makes an enormous difference also. My taste in black coffee / espresso is exclusively medium/dark roasts with chocolate/caramel tasting notes. However I really enjoy some of the lighter, fruitier roasts with milk that I find almost undrinkable as espresso.

                              My daughter loves black long as they are less acidic and less fruity. With milk, she doesn’t care and in fact thinks light and medium light or fruity coffees are best served with milk. She loves these fruity notes coffee with milk. So is my wife.

                                My family is in complete agreement on this subject. (A rarity.) We all like coffee that tastes primarily of coffee. A hint of chocolate, nuts and smoke is welcome but anything fruity is an absolute no-no. This applies to drinks with milk, long blacks and espresso.
                                We have one go to coffee and, although we do experiment, we keep coming back to the same one.

                                  A common view in a family is rare! It’s a divine gift, if we have them!

                                  On coffee matters or buying anything, my family thinks that I have gone nuts! A hopeless gone case! 😂

                                  Rob666 one go to coffee

                                  Which is ?

                                      LMSC We probably lost track some where down the line in our coffee quest, focussing too much on the notes.

                                      Not dissimilar to wine… which can be a lot more expensive (and often the notes are just a label/brand/year… trust it at your own peril).

                                          I can only echo what has already been said. For me I tend to avoid the citricy flavours just because I’m not into the to more acidic taste. Chocolate, nuts, caramel, fudgy tend to get my attention. I’ll admit though, the only real stand out flavour that my un-educated tastebuds seem to recognise reglarly is…smokey; and no I don’t and never have. The only time I actually could taste a fruit mentioned in the tasting notes (Peach) was when I had a cold brew at a meeting of members of the forum that shall not be named. That had a very intense Peach flavour.

                                          At the end of the day though, I have stopped trying to get the flavours the tasting notes hint at, if one come through then that’s a bonus, but as long as it’s got a good coffee taste, then I’m happy with that.

                                          LMSC my family thinks that I have gone nuts!

                                          I can relate 😂😂

                                            It does not seem that long ago that fruity / acidic coffee’s were the ‘thing’. I personally have never liked fruity / or acidic coffee, I am more for the’ old fashioned coffee flavour’, full flavour with rich full mouth feel.

                                            As for notes, spicy, tobacco, chocolate are more to my taste hence a liking for OBJ, mahogany roast malabar or monsooned M/ bar. Also fond of full flavoured Brazilian. No I am not a smoker.