Coffee Characteristics by Origin - great reference - Page 2

Discuss flavors, brew temperatures, blending, and cupping notes.
malling
Posts: 2935
Joined: 13 years ago

#11: Post by malling »

Origin isn't useful for taste categorisation, the main reason for this is that every coffee producing country use a huge variety of coffee varieties, for example I can name more than 20 different varieties used in Brazil alone, all of them having distinctively different taste characteristics, in top you can put altitude, soil and processing into the mix, each of these play a huge and important part in how the coffee end up tasting.

Varities and processing say wastly more of how the coffee will end up tasting than origin.

mdmvrockford
Posts: 570
Joined: 14 years ago

#12: Post by mdmvrockford »

I have not tried enough different varietals to comment on quality of information in the URI link.

I can comment and give highest recommendation on James Hoffman's "The World Atlas of Coffee: from beans to brewing." It is my go to reference besides reading posts on HB from senior members and TeamHB members.
* book reminds me of ones from DK (Dorling Kindersley) : i.e. lots of pictures, tables, sidebars and full of colors.
* have yet to have someone question information I learned from Hoffman's from book which until proven otherwise is because James Hoffman is a World Barista Champion (per this thread there are some informational quality issue with the uri link)
* Hoffman's book covers all the common ways to brew coffee beans: brew (various ways) and espresso.
* maps and cities/regions of each major coffee growing country with great accompanying pages of text. Also gives descriptions of each city/region within each country.
* written in manner that even novices like me can understand. Some other reference books are little to "dry" as they are clearly have target audience of coffee professionals or expert non-professional connoisseurs, IMO.
LMWDP #568

malling
Posts: 2935
Joined: 13 years ago

#13: Post by malling »

The problem with the provided link is the same as James book, both of them over simplifies, For example in Ethiopia the farms tend to be very small and varieties used can vary from one village to another, within the same region. I had the pleasure to enjoy two coffees from the same region but from neighbouring villages that had completely opposite tasting profiles and I tried it more than once, this is why regional and country taste descriptions isn't very helpful. Even in countries that has less varieties, the problem is the same, a Cattura won't taste the same as a Pacamara even if these are grown in the same area under similar conditions. You can even take the same variety and change the altitude and you'll end up with two distinctively different result, grow it in a different environment and it can be night and day.

All the different aspects influence on each other, change one aspect and you'll end up with a different profile. This is why the same "bean" change i balance, flavours from harvest to harvest, as temperatures, rainfall, humidity etc. never is the same.

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