Coffee Glossary
Acidity: Not a defect. Flavourful acids that form during roasting and give coffee life and sparkle. The lighter the roast, the more highlighted the acidity.
Arabica: The better of the two main coffee species (see Robusta). Naturally contains less caffeine, and is valued for its delicate, prized flavours.
Bitterness: Used to express displeasure. Coffee is naturally bitter, but it becomes unpleasant when it's under roasted, or overheated on a burner.
Blend: A mixture of coffee beans. Often the beans are from different regions in the world, and sometimes of different roasts.
Body: A tasting term to describe the weight of coffee on the palate. Paper-filtered coffee is typically light in body. Espresso often has a syrupy body.
Cinnamon Roast: The lightest roast available commercially. No oils on the surface. High acidity and lighter in body, with more flavour.
City Roast: Slightly darker than a cinnamon roast. More or less dark cinnamon in colour, with no oils on the surface of the beans.
Cupping: The process professional tasters use to evaluate a sample of beans. Roasted and ground coffee is steeped in hot water and the "coffee" is tasted warm and as it cools.
Dry Process: (Also called natural process) The drying of coffee cherries in the sun. Causes the pulp of the cherries to ferment and separate from the seed (coffee bean).
French Roast: The darkest roast, sometimes almost black, with a gloss of oil on the surface. Caramelized flavour.
Full City Roast: A dark roast--lighter than the French Roast. Full body, low acidity, with caramelized flavour.
Green Coffee: The seeds (beans) from coffee cherries. Pale in colour--between light green hay and dull beige straw.
Java: A main island of Indonesia, made a centre of coffee production. They were so successful, that "Java" has remained slang for coffee.
Mocha/Mocha Java: The original name of the port on the Arabian peninsula (Al Mukha in Arabic) where the first cultivated coffee was shipped. In Europe, "mocha" became synonymous with coffee, and when chocolate arrived from the New World, it was thought to be similar in taste. The word mocha lives on, and is used to describe anything with the combination of coffee and chocolate, like the most famous coffee blend--Mocha Java.
Parchment: The hard beige jacket around a coffee bean (resembles a thin pistachio shell) that remains after it is washed or dry processed. Beans in this state can be stored for months without flavour changes.
Roasting: The heating process that releases all the potential flavours locked in the green beans. Most commonly done by spinning the beans in a drum heat by a gas flame.
Robusta: The lesser of the two main coffee species (see Arabica). Used primarily in blends, Robusta beans are hardy, and have a harsher, earthy flavour.
Silverskin: Papery chaff that adheres to the skin of the green bean. It is often visible as beige flecks in ground coffee.
Swiss Water Process: A decaffeination method (similar to the Water Process) in which charcoal filters, not chemicals, are used to remove caffeine.
Vienna Roast: Stage at which beans are chocolate brown, with dark brown speckles. Also describes a blend of beans taken to several different roast degrees.
Washed Coffee: Coffee cherries that are put through channels of running water to remove the seed, or coffee bean within.
Water Process: Decaffeination process in which caffeine is removed from green coffee beans by soaking them in water. The process can involve chemicals.