First post -- hello! -- having learned so much from this site in the past months, I hope it's O.K. to ask for more about expressing espresso flavor. There are hundreds of articles and discussions, but I haven't found "the one."

Experience: Relatively well-traveled amateur consumer of small black coffees. You can see from the equipment list that I mean really AMATEUR.

My freshly-ground, day-old Yirgacheffe kind of smelt of rose-petals, cheese, underdone boiled beef with lemon etc to five different people.

So, I wondered, how to express the flavors in an espresso?

Again and again I read that coffee contains between 800 and 1,000 aroma compounds. However, lab-developed "aroma models" of fresh coffee can get away with twenty or so. (No coffee-tasters among the test subjects) The greater the number of aromas together, the harder it is to pick them apart.

Changing the concentration of a smell by a few parts per million can change what it smells of. One particular chemical at a low concentration smells sweetly of maple syrup, but at a slightly higher concentration of spicy curry (roasted fenugreek).

Other smells prompt different flavor responses according to whether they hit the nose while the tongue is tasting something acidic or while it's tasting something sweet, or savory. Benzaldehyde in dry, baked goods makes people think of almonds. But in wet, mildly acid foods, it evokes cherries. It's about associations and expectations.

You see where I'm going with this. Is a coffee fruity? Is it toasted-nutty? They could be two responses to the same chemical. Benzaldehydes occur in roasted coffee in concentrations sufficient to be smelt. If the coffee is a medium-roast washed Kenyan with plenty of fruity acid, a big dose of this benzaldehyde produces a "cherry bomb." But if it's a mellow, sweetish, natural Brazilian roasted a little darker, the same quantity of the same benzaldehyde produces "almond praline." Or one and the same coffee could be sold as a French press coffee with "hints of marzipan," while as an espresso it's "tangy morello." Both descriptors makes sense if one knows about benzaldehyde (and relative acidity of espresso).

It's not to say one should jargonise, "Oh, this coffee has such intriguing depths of methylpropanal, are you getting the fresh notes of acetaldehyde and lingering linalool?" Please, no.

Rather, because there is so much published interest and research about coffee now, even beginners can know some of the basic chemistry behind flavor, and this offers a promising route for less certain tasters to explore, define and express flavor experiences with more certainty and clarity.

Maybe this is common knowledge? -- or too abstract? But for me, aroma compound information (let it not be "molecular gastronomy" ) takes some of the mystery out of coffee descriptors.

Knowing about Maillard reactions, I understood why some coffees smell of "un-coffee-like" foods. It made sense of the "yeast extract" odor I caught from my monsooned Malabar. And, if that Malabar were more sugary on the tongue, the same dark sharpish savory smell would taste less "meaty" (as I now think of it) and more "chocolatey." (I tried salting it. Tasty! Into the next beef stew an espresso will go.)

Equally, I guess if there is less vanillin in the coffee, Maillard compounds smell more savory, while more vanillin pushes the overall coffee towards "sweet" even without extra sugar in the bean.

Texture - oily, astringent, "tingly" (like too-fresh-roasted), heavy, or watery - might also alter the perception of flavor. "Tomato-soupy"? Oily and heavy with dense, savory Maillard compounds and a fruity aroma. "Light citrus"? The same fruity aroma, but in a mildly astringent, watery context, with a lower concentration of Maillard elements.

It's worth thinking about, if only to become more practiced in tasting what is there.

My own reaction to the Yirgacheffe - processed sour fruit/dried flowers - perhaps owed to a relatively high level of a raspberry ketone characteristic of several Ethiopian coffees, other sweet flowery compounds, and maybe some stuff also found in blue cheese.

Learning about the chemicals behind the flavors is helping me to get to grips with (a) what I'm actually smelling and tasting (b) better ways of describing that (c) how it relates to the terms used by other people ... also maybe (d) adjusting my own responses and expectations ... deciding whether to taste "midnight cigarillo" or "ashtray."

What do you think? Can and should beginners use science to talk better poetry?

Thanks for reading this far

Katharine

You have some interesting points and a well structured argument.

First, I think it pays to remember that the human taste and the grey mushy computer its attached to are very good at chemical analysis. There are few pieces of equipment that even come close to being able to pull information out aromatic chemical soups. So, knowing the biochemical pathways to nueron stimulation can only help clarify the way we express ourselves. Its also true that we are more likely to identify changes in proportions of chemicals than concentration, so we are describing the proportion of the tasty aromatic chemicals.

Secondly, the coffee is the plants reproductive efforts. The flesh of the coffee cherry is there to be attractive to eat the seed. So, its fruity to attract insects to it for exchanging DNA (think of the vanilla smell of flowers), a sweet to be rewarding to eat (the fruity apricot, blueberry). Then the fiberous wooden seed was several layers of defence to protect the embryo, the oils to protect the complex sugars from decay in moist environments (the citrus like flavours that also contribute to fermented cherry liquor or grassy tastes), the tannins that stop microbial growth (the bitterness like that in tea) and I think the chocolate, along with some nuttiness, relates to fats similar to the coco bean.

Most of this is just a somewhat scientifically based opinion. But the most important thing is to explore the infinitely complex universe, and finite complexity of the universe, through GOOD coffee because GOOD coffee saves time, and expresses the wonders of the existence of complex life on this sphere in the vacuum space.

Of all those 1000 chemicals, variously combined, least those left in a most common mistake even among devotees -- over-extraction;- still, a state arguably nearest to conviviality, the European is presented at times to pose, when tasting an American cup of "dishwater" instead of requested coffee.

Empirically, it is what I wouldn't truthfully be able to say, apart from a fundament among basic "personally roasted" flavors (such as chocolatey), to better qualify for fruits among hints of other flavors I think better if barely to discern;- which is not without a further qualifier to affected tastes, as synthesized laboratory-produced byproducts, I would view with discriminating if not outright suspicion.

Suspicions indeed, I have, founded in perhaps a remoter limitation, physically, never actually have participated in cupping or the trial of tastes by ritual. What I do have is yet to encounter an establishment providing a coffee product capable of eclipsing my own methodology for dealing with naturally-sourced beans;- not that I'm above mixing among byproducts, coconut, that artificially are derived to approximate milk, principally -- passing by the blueberry and whatever similarly stands -- if but to mention, given some distanced pride for outlandish equipment procured from Italy or Spain, I employ by beans off "the dock" by the bay, while sharing from the same pot from which Americans, on a concerted front, consume by quantities greater than all others, per capita.

Probably as much an excuse, really, for shortly leaving after a cup, dare should I stay for two, at the most;. . . by vantage, I'd wonder, to be placed among those amidst us whom have qualified to have quaffed an entirety, then blackened brew taken by pots. One of my first experiences then with espresso, specifically sourcing beans, was a bean shipped to me with decidedly pronounced reddish and rusty hues, perhaps to the palette near sienna. Quite an eye-opener, at least for a novice experience I've yet, with little more than a hope, again to encounter.

Hm - that helps, but ...

I should have said, this isn't about added flavors, just what's in the roasted bean, as time8 notes.

@Flasherly: sienna-colored raw beans? How did they taste? But I think your point is that, beyond something as recognisable as chocolate, looking for specific flavors in an espresso isn't so fruitful.

I don't know. From a monsooned Malabar, I got: "dark, savory, slightly farty, almost a chemical overtone but pleasant." My sister got: "Smells like opening a can of baked beans in a new car, tastes like a cigarette." The sales pitch: "Unique flavor, weighty, earthy, warm complexity." I'm now thinking these are equally valid takes on noticeable furans, mercaptans and phenols. We might not yet be able to know which, and in what proportions. But it's still exciting. I'd love to think coffee science offers both a way of identifying our espresso flavors and also a "translation medium" between personal experiences.

(I'm not forgetting about what I did to the beans and whether I made the best possible espresso from them. I'm just focusing on how to describe what's in the cup.)

@time8theuniverse, thank you - you put it into a helpful science perspective. But, with respect, I'm going to duck your final point. I'm still learning. If I drink only good espresso, I'll never know how good it is. Others have argued longer and better than I can about how to know what "good" means. For me, "interesting and bad" is as important as "good, like yesterday's." Maybe that's a different discussion. Or maybe not?

I'm hoping you, the experienced, can offer useful details of how to communicate effectively about espresso flavors independently of quality. (Assuming flavor is worth talking about for flavor's sake.) And about the appropriateness of using coffee science to help.

Have you seen the "cupping charts" at SweetMarias.com -- they're linked under their green bean descriptors through a javascript switch. The redness is something I also found early, as I was reading in a related sense dated historically for abstracts as tied to Arabic coffees;- although positive and enjoyable, the experience isn't viably one to rely on memory, at this juncture to describe tastes, but as much one surprising in encountering validity across time. Aged roasts, shelved too long, shall we say aged to over-the-hill from the point of useful consumption, will exhibit both a unique taste commonly recognizable;- docked and if held too long in the hold, certainly more inimicable to distinct, say, monsoon Indians, the "wild and wooly" of Sumatra -- in any event and as with most any coffee subject to spoilage, seems I would have heard is to a accompanying disagreeable flavoring, chemically bound. Of course, in a stricter sense of espresso, combined sources for beans are roasted longer, infused for a deepening sense of tradition, subsequent preparation uniquely lends, as if to eclipsing any one mere coffee, hence but for the vernacular of Italians putting to proverbial screw-and-cog, coffees from former reserves of things Arabic, under the term of espresso. Whereas when the single-origin coffee of recent is prepared so, it is because it also "lends" itself so, rather, under the auspices and estimation of the cupper, that flavors apart wholly do not apply, as often best showcasing by a lighter degree of roasting, often by a vacuum pot at nearby demarcation docks;- funny how that might work out, initially in a makeshift setup, for a shack to suffice, perhaps not so high up in hills to be so far the jungle, close to the coffee crops, where the picker has also has set up a roaster, a table for the obligatory vacuum pot, and perhaps a chair to sit before judgment in a time ripe to harvest.

Ah ... Thank you all.

Putting together the flavor-wheels, some of the organic chemistry, the comments above about pernicious science and flavor-control, and the Sweet Maria glossary, it's making more sense.

(The "boiled beef and lemon juice" smell ... neither good nor bad. I could see what she meant. Meatily fragrant, fruity, light, sharp. If it helps, the vendor described "floral acidity with muscat-like undertones.")

Here's what I would say to me now if I met me a few months ago.

1. Within coffee's complex, variable, "coffee" flavor there are hundreds if not thousands of distinctive sub-flavors. You are capable of tasting this. It's not just for an elite.

2. The varying flavors come from varying mixtures and proportions of chemicals in the coffee bean. The same or similar chemicals occur in many other foods and substances. Pleasure aside, a coffee can reasonably taste of something that's also distinctive of guavas or peanut butter or a car tire.

3. Tasting a flavor is a separate ability from communicating it, but if you can't talk about it sensibly no-one can know what you tasted, and you may have trouble defining it even to yourself.

4. Coffee professionals have developed a loosely agreed vocabulary for taste, aroma and texture characteristics. This is the primary vocabulary you must work with, for better or worse, because it has the widest credence and familiarity. Coffee professionals are required to supply coffee that (broadly) tastes certain ways, so their vocabulary is values-oriented, and also implies control parameters for flavor. Because coffee-pro lingo refers to years of experience and many kg of caffeine consumption it is not necessarily intuitively useful for beginners. But it is documented. The words can be learnt. (Try the coffee glossary at Sweet Maria's.)

5. The coffee taster's flavor wheels (linked above by another_jim) will clarify your descriptions of flavors in espresso because they tie the terminology to actual events befalling the coffee during harvest, storage, etc, and they try (however arbitrarily) to group together aromas and flavors that are "near" each other in our experience.

6. Coffee science helps make sense of how and why coffee smells and tastes the way it does. Its terminology is limited as a descriptive language because (a) for many reasons, there is no clear one-to-one match between Chemical X and Perceived Flavor Y, (b) technology lags far behind human noses and (c) the names are ridiculously unappealing. (Though "damascenone" is a very pretty word.) (See, for example, coffeeresearch.org's "Coffee Chemistry: Coffee Aroma.")

7. Learn politely to adjust your espressese to different coffee circumstances: emailing a roaster with an enquiry, participating in a high-faluting brag session, chatting up an organic chemist at a party, offering an exotic SO to friends and family, graciously accepting the third sugar in a Turkish coffee.

8. All this remains at the service of actually creating and experiencing espresso as a sophisticated form of hedonism tinged with the obsessive pursuit of the Ideal.

Have I missed anything?

Great thread, thanks for taking the time to start it Katharine.

I've been focusing on flavor a lot in the last few weeks and this thread has provided plenty of food for thought (no pun intended).