THE COLUMBUS COFFEE GUIDE TO COFFEE TERMS

The more you understand the more you enjoy.

The best way to find out what these characteristics mean is to keep trying different coffees! At Columbus Coffee you can buy as little as 250grams, so trying different coffees is not a risky expensive exercise. Each time you try a new coffee, use the guide below to identify the body, flavour, aroma and acidity characteristics and it won't be long before you will start recognising what you enjoy in a coffee and after all that's really all that matters!

Acidity
An acidy coffee is somewhat analogous to a dry wine. In fact in some coffees the acidy taste actually becomes winy, for example in the Ethiopian Djimmah. The pleasant tartness, snap or twist is what coffee people call acidity. It should be distinguished from sour, which in coffee terminology means an unpleasant sharpness. Of our coffees, the least acidy is the Indian Mysore, the coffee with the greatest acidity the Kenyan AA.

Body
Body or mouth feel is the sense of heaviness, richness and thickness at the back of the tongue when you swish the coffee around your mouth. To follow the wine analogy again, burgundies and certain other reds are heavier in body than clarets and most white wines. Of our range of coffees, Mexican Chiapas should have the lightest body and the Sumatran Mandheling the heaviest.

Aroma
Strictly speaking, aroma can't be separated from acidity and flavour. Acidy coffees smell acidy and richly flavoured smell richly flavoured. Nevertheless, there is frequently a subtle floral note to some coffees that is experienced most clearly in the aroma. In our coffees you are most likely to detect this floral note in the Colombians and the Kona.

Flavour
Acidity, body and aroma all contribute to flavour. Some coffees have a full rich flavour for example the Sumatra Mandheling, others like the Guatemalan have an acidy tang that tends to dominate and others have a distinctive flavour that stands out, for example, the soft flowery notes of an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe.

Finish
If aroma is the overture of coffee then finish is the resonant silence at the end of the piece. Finish describes the aftertaste that lingers on the palate after the coffee is swallowed. Heavier bodied coffees like the Sumatran will have a longer finish than the lighter bodied coffees like the Mexican.