What a Coffee Tasting Note Actually Means When We Write One (the Adjective Dictionary We Don't Use)

October 15, 2026

What a Coffee Tasting Note Actually Means When We Write One (the Adjective Dictionary We Don't Use)

Most specialty coffee bags ship with a paragraph of tasting notes on the side. The notes usually include words like "stone fruit," "cocoa nibs," "honeysuckle," "black currant," and "toffee." Most of those words mean something to a trained cupper. Most of them mean something different to a customer reading the bag at home.

This is the inside view of how we actually write tasting notes, why we deliberately skip a long list of adjectives that the specialty industry uses constantly, and what you should actually look for when you read a coffee description.

What a tasting note is supposed to do

A tasting note has two jobs:

Help you decide whether to buy the coffee. The note should give you enough information to predict whether you'll like the cup, given your preferences.
Help you taste what you're tasting. The note should give you a vocabulary for the flavors in the cup, so you can describe what you're drinking to yourself or to a friend.

Most industry tasting notes fail at one or both jobs. They either:

Use words the customer doesn't have a sensory reference for ("this coffee exhibits a pronounced black currant note with a structured acidity"). Most people have never tasted fresh black currant. They don't know what "structured acidity" means.
Default to safe adjectives that don't differentiate one coffee from another ("smooth," "balanced," "rich"). Every coffee is smooth. Every coffee is balanced. The word "rich" doesn't tell you what kind of rich.

We try to write notes that hit both jobs. The way we do it is to use adjectives that have a clear sensory referent in most people's experience, and to use specific rather than general terms.

The adjectives we don't use

We have an internal adjective list we try to avoid. Most of these are specialty-industry standards:

"Smooth." Every coffee is smooth. The word doesn't differentiate. If a coffee is genuinely smoother than average, we'll say so, but the bar is high.
"Balanced." Same problem. Every well-made coffee is balanced.
"Rich." Means nothing specific. Could mean heavy body, could mean a specific flavor note, could mean strong. We use "full-bodied" or "heavy-bodied" if we mean body, and a specific flavor note if we mean flavor.
"Complex." Sometimes true, usually filler. We use it only when a coffee genuinely has 4+ distinguishable flavor notes.
"Bright." Has lost most of its meaning. We use it only if the acidity is unusually high for the origin.
"Bold." Marketing term. Doesn't describe flavor.
"Earthy." Used to mean almost anything. We use it only when the cup has a literal dirt or soil note, which happens with some natural-process coffees.
"Caramel." Used so often it's lost meaning. We use it only when the sweetness specifically tastes like burnt sugar rather than fruit or chocolate.
"Floral." Generic. We name the flower if we can (jasmine, hibiscus, rose, honeysuckle).
"Stone fruit." Specialty industry standard but vague. We name the fruit if we can (peach, apricot, plum, cherry).

The general principle: if an adjective could be applied to almost any coffee, we don't use it. If it specifically describes a flavor that's distinguishable, we use it.

What we use instead

The note we wrote for our Costa Rica Tarrazú is a good example:

> "Bright, almost tea-like, with a clean green-apple acidity and a soft honey sweetness in the finish. Light to medium body. The cup stays clean even as it cools."

That note tells you:

Acidity level. Bright, clean, green-apple specific.
Sweetness profile. Honey, not sugar. Suggests a delicate sweetness rather than a heavy sweetness.
Body. Light to medium. Helps you predict whether you'll find the cup thin or full enough.
Temperature behavior. The cup stays clean as it cools. Some coffees turn muddy or sour when coffee gets cold. This one doesn't.

Compare that to a more industry-standard note:

> "This coffee exhibits a vibrant acidity with notes of stone fruit, a silky body, and a long, complex finish with hints of caramel and brown sugar."

That note uses words the customer probably doesn't have a sensory reference for ("vibrant acidity," "silky body," "long finish"), defaults to safe adjectives ("complex"), and doesn't differentiate this coffee from any other washed Latin American. You couldn't use that note to predict whether you'd like the cup.

The 12 words we use most often

Across our catalog, these are the 12 adjectives we lean on most:

Clean. The cup doesn't have muddy or off flavors.
Mild. The cup is light-bodied, low-acidity, gentle.
Bright. High acidity, but specifically in a citrus or green-apple register.
Sweet. Specifically referring to perceived sweetness. We add a reference (honey, caramel, fruit).
Earthy. Used carefully, only when there's a literal dirt or forest-floor note.
Nutty. Specifically almond, hazelnut, or peanut. We name the nut.
Chocolate. Specifically milk chocolate (sweet, low bitterness) or dark chocolate (more bitter, less sweet). We specify.
Fruity. Used only when the fruit note is clear. We name the fruit.
Floral. Used only when the flower is identifiable.
Spicy. Specifically cinnamon, clove, or black pepper. We name the spice.
Full. Full-bodied, heavy on the palate.
Tea-like. Light body, clean acidity, delicate finish. Used often for washed Africans and Pacific origins.

Notice that none of these adjectives requires a sensory reference the customer doesn't have. Most people know what green apple tastes like. Most people know what honey tastes like. Most people know the difference between milk chocolate and dark chocolate. We name the specific referent whenever possible.

How we test our own notes

We have a process for checking that our tasting notes are accurate:

Cup blind. Three of us cup each new coffee without seeing the origin or the notes. We each write our own descriptors independently. Then we look at all three lists and find the overlap. The overlapping notes go into the bag description.
Customer check. After a coffee has been out for a few weeks, we read the customer reviews. If customers consistently describe the coffee with words we didn't use, that's a sign our notes are missing something real.
Re-cup at 30 days. The first cup happens within a week of roast. The 30-day re-cup happens 30 days after roast. If the cup has changed meaningfully, we update the note.

The result is that our notes usually match the customer experience better than the typical specialty bag description. They also tend to be shorter — most of ours are 2-3 sentences, not paragraphs.

How to read any tasting note

If you're reading a coffee bag description and trying to figure out whether you'll like the coffee, here's what to look for:

Specific fruit names predict whether you'll like the acidity and sweetness profile.
Specific body descriptors ("light," "full," "tea-like") predict mouthfeel.
Named spices or nuts are usually accurate. They're easier to verify than fruit notes.
Generic adjectives ("smooth," "balanced," "complex") don't predict anything.
Origin alone gives you a baseline. Washed Kenyans are usually bright. Natural Brazils are usually chocolatey. Washed Costa Ricans are usually mild. Use origin as a starting point and the note as the differentiator.

A note that doesn't tell you anything specific about the cup isn't a useful note. We try to write notes that tell you something specific.

What we still get wrong

Honest about it: we still write notes that miss.

Roast-to-roast variation. Our notes are written for a specific roast date. The same coffee 30 days later will taste different, especially for the lighter roasts. The note doesn't capture that evolution.
Brew-method context. Our notes are written from pour-over and Chemex cuppings. A customer who brews the same coffee in a French press will experience a different cup. The note doesn't account for that.
Subjective preference. Two people can drink the same cup and describe it differently. One person's "honey sweetness" is another person's "weak sweetness." The note is our best guess at a shared vocabulary.

We could over-correct by writing 500-word notes that capture every variable, but at that point the note becomes a book chapter and most customers won't read it. We try to keep them short and useful. If you want more detail, write us — we read every email.

P.S. If you want to read our existing notes for the catalog, the single-origin lineup page has the cup descriptions for every coffee we currently stock. And if you're curious how we test coffees before they make the catalog, how we taste-test new coffees walks through the cupping process.