beans description

Aktion

Is there a non-commercial collective or database of beans description? (taste)
I want to hear the opinion of the drinker, not the roaster.

beanflying

This ones commercial but the archive is a great resource for a start   http://www.sweetmarias.com/prod.greencoffee.mvc.php or scroll to the bottom of the page and go by country. Batch to batch, processing methods and actual farm make a huge difference to what you get so it is hard unless you have an identical bean roasted the same way to get an apples for apples comparison. Best you can hope for is possibly generic country or area X has typically .... attributes.

mycuppa

And then if you start blending, all sorts of strange things can happen via the interchange of thermals at different stages of the roast.

Aktion

Thanks for the link BF, and yes, I do agree with you. However, at this point all I want is to establish a base line. Roasters have a funny way of describing their beans, some sound more like a marketing script. I have found from personal experience in unrelated interests, the enthusiasts (at least the non pretentious) give a much better/honest description of a product. I'd love to find a SO that encapsulates everything I ever wanted in a shot, but it is unlikely, and that's where the fun begins. I am sure I'll roast and blend more undrinkable coffee than not but, in the words of T. Edison "I have not failed 1,000 times.  I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb." I'll eventually get it right.

beanflying

Some roasters are guilty of flowery prose and pretentious rubbish talk of Notes of this and hints of whatever and some aren't. You will find the couple of sponsors here that roast generally in the non flowery more factual descriptors (hope that doesn't offend Attilio or Jeff  ) A good thing to do is to get along to a cupping session or two as your in Melbourne and try some different beans and have a chat about them, you will learn a heap at these. Seven Seeds run one Thursday mornings and Market Lane normally run them 3 or 4 days a week. There are others that run them from time to time as well. For me there is no such thing as the perfect SO or blend so I enjoy the variety aspect of coffee as much as possible. From that I have found some firm favourites and clear stand outs but that changes from year to year as the crops vary.

Aktion

Thanks for the tips BF, much appreciated.

beanflying

Flowery prose at its best here  ;D http://www.sandalj.com/miscele.asp?blID=35&catID=3&subcatID=10&subcatname=Sandalj%20Espresso%20Blends&bl_name=STRADIVARI%20BLEND&collapse=yes

Koffee_Kosmo

Add to that the personal aspect of ones taste buds are different to another What you like may differ to someone else I try to roast for chocolate & caramel flavours but my preference is coffee with milk and I also like coffees that can cut through it I have been to a few cupping lessons at venezziano cafe in Brisbane and have learnt quite a bit The notes people talk about will only surface on a cupping test and you will be surprised the difference from hot and warm water Once we cupped a Sumatra Blue ?? it had an industrial flavour it tasted like a smell I know in my memory It was the smell of a welder dipping steel in water to cool it down So its not always berries and citrus But it tastes nice with milk and as a blend go figure KK

FreshCoffee2

I understand where you are coming from Aktion....and then I dont. I dont think you will find any of us roasters in here that would use pretentious or over technical lingo in describing the coffees we are cupping. In fact I think you would find that we are a pretty down to earth lot and like to use the KISS principle ourselves particularly when dealing with members of the public who we cant expect to have a bagful of technical terms to work from. There needs to be a balance in discussion, so no point putting restrictions on who responds to a question especially if you ask for only members of the general public to respond, because then you wont learn things from the professonal side of coffee that could have been very useful....the tail wagging the dog syndrome again. Personally, I am not a fan of certain websites that I think make interest in coffee, pretentious. And I have a feeling that came from the consumer end not necessarily the pro roaster end..... When Cupping, I use my "minds eye". Sip into your mouth, swirl around, and let you minds eye come up with whatever it comes up with.  Dont look for overly technical or flowery adjectives, look rather for the obvious things first such as acidity (bright or lacking or somewhere in between), bitterness (NO NOT CAFE INDUCED BITTERNESS which is a fault due to the method of brewing....rather, the bitterness that comes of over roasted beans that get a burnt / ashy character), sourness (a kind of yukkie dullness on the palate). Look also for an impression of the overall mouthfeel, and whether the coffee has body or not, and how it finishes on the palate. See if your minds eye can pick characters that seem to come from the top of the palate, or from the back, or wherever. That is where I would start, is easily understandable, you might be interested to learn it forms the basis of professional espresso cupping, is not pretentious, and I hope that helps. If you then can pick fruits, berries, nuts chocolate or whatever, then good for you but dont expect other individuals to find the same things you did, especially if they have different degrees of experience at cupping to where you are at any particular point, and of course you all have to be cupping the same coffee at the same time or there can be no comparison. Enjoy. Rgdz, Attilio very first Crema site sponsor & proud professional coffee roaster. PS...a professional coffee roaster is someone that roasts coffee for a living and the term has nothing to do with whether someone works in a large company and has a 240 kilo roaster, or is a 2 man show with a 5 kilo roaster in a retail shopfront or for that matter in their garage.

askthecoffeeguy

Unrelated - not sure if any mods are up for it bur this is one of the topics thats not mobile formatted and a fair amount of text is cut iff St the right if the screen - anyone wanna take a look at that and see how it's different to other posts ?

mycuppa

To be honest, I hate having to prepare descriptions about coffees. I should say I don't hate it, I rarely have the time available to do it properly. It really is very difficult and when some things can actually be very similar, yet there is that almighty unwritten/unspoken expectation for you to create a clear distinction between bean A and bean B, or blend X and blend Y. Of course, they are different, but how much and what terms can you invent to describe that difference. Sometimes this is exaggerated for the benefit of the end consumer, other times it is insufficient and there is ambiguity. Many years ago I used to have a lot of time to spend on this task, these days it's just not the case and I just don't enjoy writing descriptions. I'm basically at that point where I will give someone a pack of coffee in exchange for their feedback, yes, it's resorted to bribery I'm afraid. I also receive probably 10+ calls every day from people browsing our online store and seeking more information to describe a coffee, or the one I fear the most, please recommend a coffee for me........sometimes it's fun, other times very drawn out as you play a game of cat & mouse running through the list and trying to pick their preferences. One day there will be a more structured format to classify coffee descriptions. I've had an idea in my mind for years now on how this should look and a few of the more innovative US sites are close to this idea/dream. For a roaster, it's the chicken or the egg dilemma - how can you expect to sell a coffee if you won't put the effort into describing it properly.

Aktion

It helps to see what the

RichardM

on 1312020782:

It helps to see what the

Koffee_Kosmo

on 1312020782:

It helps to see what the

FreshCoffee2

Appreciate the comments fellas. A.