Coffee Fermentation Flavor Continuum Ebook

While coffee flavor is dependent on myriad factors from cultivar to roast degree to brewing style and beyond, primary coffee processing – fermentation – is responsible for the creation of major identifiable flavors in basically every coffee.

If you were to set two coffees in front of a trained taster, one tasting like ripe blackberries and the other tasting like fresh orange and caramel, the taster would likely predict that the berry-flavored coffee was a natural and the citrusy coffee was traditionally washed. In a world where traditional styles of processing are the only ones available, that taster would likely be correct.

With the advent of unique fermentation techniques, however, our flavor palate has expanded and overlapping styles of processing may create uncommon, unexpected, or simply unpredictable flavors that defy easy categorization.

However, it’s still probably true that traditionally processed washed coffees will produce the mildest flavors. Container-loads of generic 82 point washed coffees tasting like caramel, cacao, nuts, and only the vaguest of fruits are loaded onto trucks and ocean liners every day of the year. This is true in part because processes like depulping, fermenting, and washing coffee were originally utilized as means to an end – a functional step that aided efficiencies in preservation and shipping.

Yet, because of excitement – much of it fairly new to our industry – around the flavor potential of fermentation, the line of excellence and failure has been blurred with respect to flavors which fifteen or twenty years ago would have been rejected as “overly fermented.” If the coffee tastes boozy and winey without cup variation, and was crafted with intent, then we can generally accept it as successful (even if we might individually find it unpalatable). Our open mindedness at the cupping table is spurred by the thought that there is surely also a market for some coffees like these, on the far reaches of the fermentation flavor spectrum.