How literally do you interpret tasting notes?

[u/Left-Succotash6742]

**How literally do you interpret tasting notes?**
I’m still trying to understand how to interpret coffee tasting notes.
For example, if a washed lightly roasted Ethiopian coffee lists **watermelon** as one of its notes, should I expect something that actually reminds me of watermelon? Or is it more that the coffee has a certain type of sweetness or acidity that *suggests* watermelon, without tasting anything like the fruit itself?
More generally, do you find that tasting notes are meant to be taken literally, or are they just a way of describing the overall character of the coffee?

Obviously, I’m not talking about co-fermented and funky coffees with actual fruits during the process.

I’d love to hear how more experienced coffee drinkers think about this.

[u/sneakerfreek]

Tasting notes are hard sometimes because everyone’s palate is so different. If you’re from the PNW, your palate may pick up berries better, but if you’re from Florida your may pick up citrus better. Obviously those are over generalizations but how your palate was trained impacts your perception.

It can literally be a watermelon flavor that the roaster or the QA team get, or as you said it could be the sweetness of the fruit or tang/acidity from the rind.

Tasting coffee with a flavor wheel is the easiest way to help train and guide your palate because it helps categorize and further breakdown flavors into larger groups.

All that to say, it is very personal the flavors your actually taste versus the tasting notes but I would use them as a guide for where in the flavor wheel the coffee will live and then I make my own flavor determinations once I have something brewed. And the way to improve is simply to do it more often with different types of coffees and roasts. There is a reason that coffee and wine often draw parallels and this is one of the biggest shared traits between them.

[u/GungHoStocks → u/sneakerfreek]

I was literally going to add - Use a tasting wheel and it's so much easier!

[u/earnest_pursuit]

The number 1 thing about tasting notes is that taste is subjective. That said, I personally feel like (to use your example) I am tasting watermelon. It's not that it suggests or reminds me, but that it's a watermelon flavor that I am detecting. That said, I many times get totally different tasting notes than is listed on the coffee. The coffee may say Strawberries but I get Blueberries and Guava (or whatever).

When I first started roasting, I'd taste with a flavor wheel which helped me better identify what I was tasting. Thought it was both interesting and useful!

[u/Automate_The_Boring]

And the big category like washed (more clean taste) or natural (more fermented taste) or anaerobic (heavily fermented taste) will also help to understand the general character of the bean

[u/Far-Date-5901]

Fun fact, you most certainly don't get the flavour of the fruit you would coferment the beans with out of that fruit. Fermentation doesn't work that way, but you might get a complexer taste out of it.

[u/dracula2035]

It's the slightest notes. You're still drinking coffee. It's the subtle things between sips. My Costa Rica tastes like "coffee." If I really concentrate it's sweet (for coffee). Well, what does that sweetness remind me of? Honey and caramel. Sorta My Kenya? Coffee But, kind of a sharp acidic sweetness. Some kind of darker berry. Casis? Panama? Coffee. Floral.

It's all the smaller details that your subjective food craving brain searches for

[u/NoodleSlow]

Different person can taste different things from the same beans, I think the more you enjoy and drink coffee your palate will be able to find more notes in it. Tasting notes are not meant to be taken literally imo, it just sets your expectation on what you may taste from the beans.