Coffee glossary
The language of specialty coffee — processing, varieties, roasting, and trade terms, explained. The same terms light up across the site; hover any dotted-underlined word for a quick definition.
Processing
- Anaerobic fermentation
Cherries or depulped seeds ferment in sealed, oxygen-free tanks. Produces intense, unusual flavors — cinnamon, bubblegum, boozy fruit — that divide opinion.
Fermenting in sealed tanks (often with CO₂ valves) shifts which microbes do the work, pushing flavor far beyond what open-air fermentation produces. An umbrella for a family of experimental techniques including carbonic maceration, borrowed from winemaking.
- Co-fermentation
Coffee fermented together with added fruit, yeast, or spices, which imprint their flavor on the bean. Loud, candy-like cups; purists debate whether it still 'tastes like coffee'.
Producers add ingredients — mango pulp, cinnamon, wine yeast — to the fermentation tank so their aromatics carry into the seed. The results can taste like strawberry candy or tropical punch. Beanpedia labels these lots explicitly because the flavor comes partly from the added ingredient, not the terroir.
- Honey process
The skin is removed but some sticky fruit mucilage is left on during drying. Lands between washed and natural: more sweetness and body than washed, cleaner than natural.
Named for the honey-like sticky mucilage (miel) left on the seed, not the flavor. Producers grade it by how much mucilage remains and how it is dried — white, yellow, red, and black honey, roughly in order of increasing fruit influence. Common in Costa Rica and Central America.
- Natural process
The whole cherry is dried with the fruit still on the seed. Gives heavier body and big fruit flavors — think berries and wine — sometimes with a fermenty edge.
Also called the dry process, and the oldest way to prepare coffee. Whole cherries are spread on patios or raised beds and dried for weeks, so sugars and fruit compounds migrate into the seed. Expect ripe fruit (blueberry is the cliché), heavier body, and lower perceived acidity than washed lots; badly managed naturals can taste boozy or overripe.
- Sugarcane (EA) decaf
Decaffeination using ethyl acetate derived from fermented sugarcane, common in Colombia. Keeps sweetness well; often labeled 'EA' or 'sugarcane process'.
Ethyl acetate — a solvent that also occurs naturally in fruit — selectively bonds with caffeine in steamed green coffee. Because Colombia both grows coffee and produces cane-derived EA, many high-quality decafs are processed there close to origin. Alternatives include the water-only Swiss Water process and supercritical CO₂.
- Thermal shock
An experimental process that hits fermented cherry with rapid hot-then-cold water changes to lock aromatics into the seed. Associated with ultra-expressive competition lots.
- Washed process
The fruit is removed from the seed before drying, usually with fermentation and a water rinse. Tends to give clean, transparent cups where origin character shows clearly.
Also called the wet process. After harvest the cherry is depulped, the remaining sticky mucilage is broken down by fermentation (or scrubbed off mechanically), and the seed is rinsed and dried. Because the fruit spends little time on the seed, washed coffees usually taste 'clean' — acidity, florals, and varietal character come through with little fruity ferment flavor.
- Wet-hulled
Indonesian method (giling basah) where parchment is stripped while the seed is still wet, then dried bare. Gives the earthy, spicy, heavy-bodied profile classic to Sumatra.
Unique to Indonesia's humid climate: coffee is hulled at high moisture and finishes drying without its protective parchment, turning the seeds dark blue-green. The cup is unmistakable — cedar, earth, spice, low acidity, syrupy body — beloved in dark roasts and traditional espresso blends.
Varieties
- Bourbon
One of the two foundational arabica varieties (with Typica), named after Île Bourbon (Réunion). Sweet, balanced, caramel-leaning; parent of countless modern cultivars.
- Castillo
Colombia's leaf-rust-resistant variety, bred by Cenicafé from Caturra and Timor hybrid. Long dismissed by purists, it now wins competitions when grown and processed well.
- Catuaí
A Brazilian cross of Mundo Novo and Caturra: short, productive, storm-resistant. Sweet, mild, dependable — everywhere in Brazil and Central America.
- Caturra
A natural dwarf mutation of Bourbon found in Brazil: compact plants, easier picking, bright and clean cup. A workhorse across Latin America.
- Gesha (Geisha)
A rare, jasmine-and-bergamot scented variety originally from Ethiopia's Gesha forest, made famous by Panama's Hacienda La Esmeralda. Routinely the most expensive coffee at auction.
Both spellings are used; 'Gesha' tracks the Ethiopian place name. The variety yields little and grows awkwardly, but its perfumed florals, tea-like body, and stone-fruit sweetness redefined what buyers pay for quality after its 2004 Best of Panama debut.
Heirloom (Ethiopia), Cup of Excellence (COE), Variety (cultivar)
- Heirloom (Ethiopia)
A catch-all label for Ethiopia's thousands of indigenous, largely uncatalogued coffee varieties — used when a lot's exact genetics are unknown.
Ethiopia is coffee's genetic homeland; wild and semi-wild 'landrace' varieties number in the thousands and most lots blend many of them. 'Heirloom' (or 'Ethiopian landraces') is honest shorthand for 'we can't name the variety', not a variety itself. Regional names like 74110 or Kurume are slowly replacing it as identification improves.
- SL28
A Kenyan variety selected in the 1930s by Scott Agricultural Laboratories, prized for intense blackcurrant acidity and deep sweetness.
- SL34
SL28's sibling selection, also from Kenya's Scott Labs. Slightly less celebrated but hardier, with a similar juicy, complex cup.
- Typica
The oldest cultivated arabica lineage, ancestor of most Latin American coffee. Low yield, clean and sweet cup; the baseline other varieties are measured against.
- Variety (cultivar)
The botanical subtype of the coffee plant — Gesha, Bourbon, SL28 — analogous to grape varieties in wine. A major driver of cup character alongside origin and process.
Roasting
- Espresso / omni roast
An 'espresso roast' is developed further for extraction under pressure; an 'omni roast' is profiled to work for both espresso and filter from one bag.
- First crack
The audible pop when steam pressure fractures the bean during roasting (~196°C). Light roasts are dropped shortly after it; dark roasts continue toward a second crack.
- Light roast
Roasted just past first crack to preserve origin character: higher acidity, florals, and fruit, lighter body. The signature of Nordic-style roasting.
- Roast date / resting
Specialty bags carry the roast date, not a best-before. Coffee needs days to degas CO₂ after roasting ('resting') and is typically best within weeks, not months.
Tasting & flavor
- Acidity
The bright, lively, fruit-like sensation in coffee — praise, not a flaw. Citric sparkle, malic apple-crispness, tartaric wine notes; light roasts preserve more of it.
- Body
The weight and texture of coffee in the mouth, from tea-like and delicate to syrupy and heavy. Driven by process, roast, variety, and brew method.
- Funky / lactic
Tasting language for deliberate fermentation flavor: yogurt-like tang (lactic), winey or boozy notes, overripe fruit. A feature in experimental lots, a defect in classic ones.
'Funk' covers the fermentation-driven end of the flavor spectrum. 'Lactic' points at the creamy, yogurt-like tang produced by lactic-acid bacteria, common in anaerobic lots; 'winey' and 'boozy' describe alcohol-adjacent ferment notes in naturals. Whether these read as exciting or defective depends entirely on intent and control.
- Tasting notes
The flavors a roaster perceives in the cup — 'jasmine, apricot, black tea'. Descriptive associations, not ingredients: nothing is added to the coffee.
Brewing & evaluation
- Cupping
The standardized tasting ritual — coarse grounds steeped in hot water, crust broken, slurped from a spoon — used to score and compare coffees.
Cupping strips away brewing skill so only the coffee is judged: fixed dose, fixed water, no filter. Professionals score attributes (aroma, acidity, body, balance…) to a 100-point scale; 80+ is conventionally 'specialty' grade.
Trade & sourcing
- Blend
Coffees from multiple origins roasted or mixed together for a consistent, balanced profile year-round — the traditional backbone of espresso menus.
- Cup of Excellence (COE)
A national competition and auction that identifies a country's best lots each year; winning 'COE' lots command dramatic price premiums.
- Green coffee
Unroasted coffee seeds as they are traded and shipped. Roasters buy green and roast locally; 'green buying' is the sourcing side of the craft.
- Microlot
A small, separately processed and traded parcel of coffee — often a single day's picking from one plot — kept apart because it's exceptional.
- Peaberry
A cherry that grows one round seed instead of the usual two flat-sided ones. Sorted and sold separately; some claim it cups brighter and more concentrated.
- Single origin
Coffee from one traceable place — a country at the loosest, a single farm or lot at the strictest — rather than a blend of sources.
- Smallholder
A farmer growing coffee on a small family plot — often under two hectares. Most of the world's coffee is grown this way, typically pooled at cooperatives or washing stations.
- Terroir
Borrowed from wine: the way a place — soil, altitude, climate, even neighboring crops — expresses itself in the cup, independent of variety and process.
- Washing station
A central mill where many smallholder farmers deliver cherry for processing. In Ethiopia, Kenya, and Rwanda the station name (e.g. Idido) often identifies the coffee.
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