Coffee Glossary
There are so many things to know about coffee. All the industry jargon, slang, acronyms, origins, processes, products, techniques, terminology, methodologies, protocols, sensory descriptors, Rubiaceae family tree branches, brewers, ratios, filters (flat-bottom and cone), café drinks—there’s a lot. If you’re wondering what some coffee thing means, you can find the answer here.
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ACIDITY, also called “brightness,” is the fruity, sharp taste found in most light-roast coffees, especially African. Not to be confused with the sour, salty acid found in under-extracted coffee, intentional acidity is a highly sought-after component, denoting a quality coffee. Acidity is most present at lighter roast levels, as the roasting process gradually reduces it as the coffee’s natural sugars caramelize.
AFFOGATO is an easy Italian dessert made that’s just a shot of espresso poured over a scoop of vanilla gelato (or ice cream).
AGTRON spectrophotometers help determine and advise the roast level of a coffee using infrared light. Agtron scores are based on how much light reflects off the bean—the higher the number, the lighter the roast. Our Lead Roaster uses a Lighttells CM-100. Its readings run broadly from 0 – 40 for dark roasts, 41 – 70 for medium roasts, and 71 – 100 for light roasts.
AMERICANO is espresso diluted with hot water, often in a ratio of 1:4. History has it that the Americano was borne out of American GI homesickness. Specifically, American soldiers stationed in Italy during World War II watered down strong espresso to make it taste more like the drip coffee they were accustomed to.
ARABICA is the world’s most cultivated species of coffea, ahead of coffea canephora (robusta). All offspring of wild Ethiopian heirloom, coffea arabica is sown across Africa and Latin America, as well as in much of the Indo-Pacific. Unlike robusta, arabica is preferred for its sweetness and flavor balance that ranges from floral wine to bittersweet chocolate. Where robusta is bitter, arabica is bright (acidic), grown in lush conditions emblematic of high-quality coffee.
AROMA describes a coffee’s wet smell, after it has been saturated with hot water. According to Lead Roaster Dave, though it’s not as important as fragrance (which we’ll get to), studying aroma is beneficial in nailing down a particular coffee’s cupping notes.
AUTODRIP (see also: filter coffee, drip, and on and on) coffeemakers have been synonymous with at-home coffee brewing since the early-1970s. Capable of brewing between 4 – 12 cups in a single pot—even more using a commercial brewer—autodrip brewers utilize an electric element that rapidly heats water as it passes before traveling upwards to the shower head. Here, the water is distributed over the bed of coffee, which is then saturated, and then drips into the carafe below. Depending on your mode, autodrip typically takes around 5 minutes to brew a full pot.
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BALANCE is harmony in the cup. It’s the careful evening out of origin and roast—maintaining the flavors indicative of a coffee’s environment (delicate florals, stone fruit, vanilla) while introducing notes the roaster brings to the coffee (toasted nuts, caramel, baker’s chocolate). Coffees that are more origin than roast, or vice versa, aren’t unbalanced, however; it all has to do with what a roaster wants to highlight in a coffee.
BLENDS are composed of two or more single-origin coffees brought together to make an entirely new coffee experience that, Lead Roaster Dave adds, “maybe a single origin can’t bring on its own.” Blending aims to marry the desirable flavors of several different origins, forming a singular supergroup of flavor.
BLONDE ROAST coffee, also called cinnamon, is roasted to just after first crack at around 350°F. It’s at this roast level that the beans, being hardly altered by the roasting process, are still very acidic and can taste raw and vegetal. The traditional chocolatey flavor people associate with coffee is lost on blonde roasts since they haven’t been roasted long enough to caramelize, leaving you with smooth, albeit grassy and earthy, flavors. Pulling blonde roast espresso helps balance out the brew, bringing in much-needed body to counteract the underdeveloped taste. Sources say second wave’s most popular blonde roast isn’t actually a light roast, falling closer to second crack.
BODY “is the texture of the coffee. It’s not something you taste. It’s a sensation,” says Dave. Body is the feeling of fullness, thickness, mouthfeel, and weight, a combination of many factors: varietal, soil, process, roast, and extraction. Body is typically characterized as mild, medium, and full. Milds are tea-like, mediums are a bit heavier, and fulls can be described as buttery or syrupy.
BREW RATIO is the ratio of ground coffee to water used in your brew. A good hot brew starting ratio is 1:17, using 1 gram (0.04 oz.) of coffee for every 17 grams (0.6 oz.) of water. For cold brew concentrate, we recommend 1:10.
BYPASS refers to the water that doesn’t aid in the extraction of pour over coffee brewing, i.e., bypasses the grounds. Say you’re making a pour over cone: bypass is the water poured too closely to the bare wall of the filter that causes it to drip into your vessel without having extracted much coffee. Americanos are consciously made with bypass water. Though some bypass is natural, too much can throw off the taste of your brew. There is currently a movement in the coffee industry towards zero-bypass brewers that not only keep ratios and extractions tight but also open pour over brewing to less experienced coffee people, as it requires less technique.
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CAFFEINE (C8H10N4O2) is the stimulating psychoactive crystalline compound that naturally occurs in coffee. It was discovered by Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge in 1819 after receiving coffee beans from writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
CAPPUCCINO is a drink consisting of layered espresso, milk, and milk foam. Unlike the latte, which adheres to its name (“milk” in English) by using more milk than milk foam, the cappuccino uses about half the amount of milk and three times the amount of milk foam.
CHAFF is a byproduct of the roasting process. As a coffee is being roasted, its silverskin dries and flakes off around first crack. In the case of light roasts, however, you can still see some chaff left in the center of the bean. According to Melodrip inventor Ray Murakawa, “there’s no noticeable chaff flavor present,” said of his coffee chaff experiments. Chaff is often used as mulch and compost because of its high nitrogen content.
CHERRY is the fruit surrounding the coffee seed. It takes about 3 – 4 years for a newly planted coffee plant to fruit. As they mature, coffee cherries will go from green to yellow and finally red, though some varieties (like Yellow Bourbon) are yellow when they reach full maturity. When dried, the husk is called cascara and can be steeped like tea for a mild, fruity, lightly caffeinated brew.
CINNAMON ROAST coffee is pulled from the roaster at or very close to first crack, around 350°F. This produces a very mellow, albeit raw and underdeveloped, taste in the cup, with much of the caffeine left intact. Cinnamon roasts lack the balance even a traditional light roast benefits from. If you’re roasting to cinnamon, we recommend brewing as espresso to add some much-needed body.
CITY ROAST coffees clock in between 415°F – 425°F. It’s here that your coffee has completed first crack, has not yet hit second crack, and still retains a noticeable amount of its origin flavors, i.e., those light and bright notes. Here, we also start to taste sweet, sweet caramelization, so what you get in the cup is crisp citrus, vanilla, and stone fruit (for example) with a twist of Maillard flavors like caramel, chocolate, and spice.
CLEAN, found as a cupping note or said when talking about filter coffee (often both), refers to a coffee that tastes crisp and light, meaning there’s no overwhelmingly heavy body or off-tastes. Pour overs are synonymous with clean coffee, as they strip away much of the coffee’s natural oils (body), highlighting the subtler origin notes the oils often overpower. For example, African coffee is, on its own, a clean-tasting coffee. When brewed in a V60 or Chemex, it becomes even more so. French press coffee would not be considered clean tasting, though it is very tasty.
COARSE GRIND is the go-to for French press, cold brew, and moka pot, as well as coffee cupping. This grind is great for immersion brewing, where the grounds directly mingle with the water right up until the brew is done. Since the grind has larger particles, reminiscent of sea salt, there are fewer particles contacting the water, so the brew time needs to go longer to give it time to extract. Coarse grinds are also not typically brewed filter, so you’ll get more natural oils in your cup, i.e., better body.
COLD BREW is made by steeping coarse-ground coffee in cold water at room temperature for 8 – 24 hours. Because coffee’s goodness is extracted far slower than hot brew, the resulting glass is smoother and far less acidic, though it still packs around 205mg of caffeine per 16 oz. Pair that with its infinite drinkability, and you’ve the makings of a very jittery afternoon. Cold brewing is ideal for anyone looking to cherry-pick the best of coffee—delicate fruit flavors and rich chocolate—and leave the rest behind. We recommend brewing concentrate using a 1:10 ratio and diluting it (or not) to your heart’s content.
COMPLEXITY is a way to describe a dynamic coffee with lots going on in the cup. Many factors contribute to a coffee’s complexity, such as origin, growing environment, climate, processing, and fermentation. A complex cup feels like a fireworks show, whereas a mellow cup is more of a daily driver—something smooth and simple with fewer surprises. For a some of the most complex cups on the planet, try Roaster’s Choice.
CREMA is nanofoam. It occurs when pressurized water dissolves carbon dioxide in your coffee. The pillowy, caramel-colored forms when espresso returns to normal atmospheric pressure. Liquid can’t hold gas, so it turns into crema. It constitutes 1/3 of espresso’s appeal, acting as the acidic balance to the body’s sweetness and heart’s bitterness. Kenya is a great example—you’ll have to brew to believe it.
CUPPING is how Q Graders and coffee pros assess a coffee’s quality based on the Specialty Coffee Association’s (SCA) points of fragrance, aroma, flavor, body, sweetness, and balance. Cupping, or cup tasting, however, can be done by anyone. Foundationally, cupping reveals the language of coffee. It’s how we determine tasting notes, body, and the best ways to brew. Do your own coffee cupping with our helpful guide!
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DARK ROAST coffees are roasted to around 450°F. It’s here that the natural sugars are well into caramelization and the roast is dictating much of the coffee’s end profile. Notes of baker’s chocolate, nutmeg, and toasted nuts with syrupy bodies abound at this end of the roast spectrum. Though they are low in acid, as much of the acid-creating caffeine has been roasted off, dark roasts can be bitter. Since there’s no balancing the roaster can do at this point, many people even out dark roasts by using them in espresso drinks. The rich intensity of a dark roast espresso plays perfectly with milk and syrup.
DECAF is an umbrella term for any coffee that has been stripped of its caffeine. Up until around 1980, the main methods of decaffeination were methylene chloride and ethyl acetate, both of which are direct solvent methods that expose beans to chemicals that remove caffeine. Though these are still in use today, carbon dioxide and water process (Swiss, Royal, mountain, etc.) are also options. These methods use highly compressed CO2 and pure water, respectively, which is easier on the beans and produces a more flavorful cup.
DEFECTS a flaws found in unroasted coffee beans. These are full or partial black, full or partial sour, fungus damage, presence of foreign matter like sticks or stones, dried cherry pods, severe or slight insect damage, breakage, chips, cuts, Quakers, withered beans, shells, floaters, parchment, and husks. To be considered specialty grade, coffee can contain no defects. Imperfections are filtered out from the time the coffee’s harvested until after it’s roasted and inspected. In addition to the depulpers and mills at origin, our Loring carts are equipped with powerful magnets that trap foreign matter and our roasters have destoners.
DEGASSING is coffee’s continuous release of carbon dioxide (CO2) after roasting. During the roasting process, natural sugars are caramelized within the coffee, which creates CO2 buildup. As the coffee leaves the roaster, it begins shedding its store of CO2. You can gauge a coffee’s freshness based on, among other things, the coffee’s reaction to hot water. If your coffee bed rises and bubbles when saturated, there is still CO2 in your coffee, meaning it’s still fresh.
DIRECT TRADE means we maintain one-on-one relationships with the farmers we source from. In lieu of costly intermediaries or middlemen, coffee is shipped directly from origin to our facility. The direct trade model ensures farmers receive a higher premium for their crop, thus setting a higher quality standard and earning farmers a larger return on the sale.
DRIP GRIND is perfect for standard drip coffee makers that use either a flat-bottom or filter cone, as well as for some pour over drippers. The consistency of sand or granulated sugar, drip grind makes for coffee that is slightly bitter (a trade-off of coffee makers’ occasional under-extraction) yet retains its primary tasting notes, even the lighter, more fruity and floral ones. Next to whole bean and fine grind, drip-ground coffee is one of the most common, found wherever coffee is sold.
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EARTHY can be a take-it-or-leave-it cupping note. Common in Indonesian wet-hulled coffee, earthy coffee can taste herbaceous, sometimes papery or brothy, with tinges of phenolic acids, which are found in vegetable leaves and fruit skin. We balance this out at a medium to dark roast by amplifying the dessert spice and rich chocolate notes. On its own, earthiness can be unpleasant, but it does provide a complex foundation for denser flavors.
ESPRESSO comes from the Latin exprimere, meaning “to press out.” Espresso uses pressurized water and tightly packed fine coffee grounds to extract rich, heavy-bodied, concentrated coffee. Water is forced through a puck of coffee, seeking out the paths of least resistance. If the puck is evenly tamped, the coffee will evenly saturate all the grounds, giving you a tasty shot. Good espresso forms three distinct layers: the crema (acidity), the body (sweetness), and the heart (bitterness). All three come together to form the palate-punching taste people expect from espresso.
ESPRESSO ROAST is the roast that is not a roast. An espresso roast invokes images of dark and bitter coffee streaming out of a moka pot or portafilter, but there’s really no such thing. Espresso is a production method that can use virtually any coffee at any roast level. Some coffees produce better crema than others, some produce a deeper or more delicate flavor, and the roast can be optimized to produce the flavors one is after in an espresso.
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FAIR TRADE certification seeks to increase welfare for small farming families and communities by safeguarding ethical trade practices at every stage in the supply chain. A Fair Trade Certification guarantees a minimum market price for all Fair Trade coffee plus up to a $0.20 premium per pound. All Fair Trade premiums are designated for social, economic, and environmental development projects that are democratically selected by each community based upon greatest need.
FERMENTATION is the experimental, conscious exposure of raw coffee to microorganisms to facilitate chemical reactions that alter the flavor structure of the coffee. When done correctly, fermentation can make an impeccable coffee even more so. While all coffee is fermented to a degree, there are two main ways of going about it: aerobic and anaerobic. Aerobic fermentation has coffee cherries submerged in an open-air water tank, where they’re closely monitored for 16 – 20 hours as atmospheric microbes get to work breaking down sugars. Anaerobic fermentation follows the same gist, except the tanks are sealed tight, which forces the cherries into metabolic glycolysis where glucose-synthesized energy breaks down the mucilage over the course of four days.
FILTER coffee is any coffee intended to be brewed using a paper filter to maximize cleanliness in the cup, bringing to light the delicate, floral flavors the brewer is looking for. The main purpose of filter brewing is to remove as much oil (body) as possible, leaving only the origin notes intact.
FINE ROBUSTA, unlike regular robusta, receives a similar level of care and attention that arabica receives in its cultivation, harvesting, processing, and roasting. That’s because fine robusta can have all the nuance and complexity that roasters have long thought exclusive to arabica.
FINISH, or aftertaste, is a coffee’s lingering sensation after it has been swallowed (or spit out if you’re cup tasting). Finish is determined by the origin and roast profile. A lighter roast will finish earthy and mellow. Medium roasts tend to finish sweet and citric. Dark roasts don’t let you forget ‘em by finishing with intense brown sugar and dark chocolate.
FLAVORED coffee is coffee that has been naturally and/or artificially flavored, usually using ethyl alcohol-based flavors.
FRAGRANCE is a ground coffee’s dry scent, before it has been saturated with hot water, which first extracts its natural acids, somewhat muting lighter citric and malic notes. Paying attention to fragrance when cup tasting is essential to determining a coffee’s profile. Dave, our Lead Roaster, makes several passes when assessing fragrance, as that is when coffee is its most expressive.
FRENCH ROAST clocks in at 465°F – 470°F. Smooth and non-acidic, these coffees are great for espresso, French press, and truly any brew method that adds additional body to the coffee. One of the most recognizable dark roasts, French roasts exist in the time between the middle and end of the second crack, coming out with considerable surface oil and a dark brown hue.
FULL CITY roasts occur at 435°F – 440°F, in the three-minute span between first and second crack. It’s here that the coffee finds balance. Oil starts to appear on the surface and its brighter origin notes are smoothed out and highlighted on an underscore of toffee, hazelnut, and brittle. It’s also at a full city roast that the caffeine content begins to dial down, making for a less acidic brew. Full city (commonly, medium) roasts are generally preferred by US coffee drinkers, as they have sweeter tones and better balance between acidity and body.
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GREEN describes coffee in its natural, unroasted state. After coffee cherries have been processed and the seeds dried but before they are roasted, it exists as green coffee. It contains all the moisture, density, and natural sugars that will help define its eventual flavor profile.
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HIGH GROWN (HG) coffee, also called “hard bean (HB),” is the name given to coffees grown at exceedingly high elevations—between 1,219 and 1,524 meters above sea level. At these elevations, coffee plants’ maturation is slower than those grown lower, giving them their sweet time to develop complex notes like berry wine, spiced citrus, and florals. High grown coffee is also denser, an important metric to remember when green grading and roasting.
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ITALIAN ROAST coffee is at the far end of the roast spectrum, a mere 5°F from catching fire. Now that’s bold. Italian Roast coffee bears a heavy mouthfeel, plentiful oil on the beans’ surface, and flavors that are entirely the product of the roasting process, with all the origin notes having been roasted out. Coffees this dark are low in acid, albeit bitter, with bold, smoky notes of black currant, cocoa powder, and clove. When people ask for “strong” coffee, this is what they’re looking for.
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KOPI LUWAK is the infamous gimmick coffee harvested from the feces of the Asian palm civet, a less-threatening-looking relative of the mongoose The semi-digested coffee cherries are collected and processed, the selling point being that the civet’s digestive system alters the coffee’s flavor, making it the “Holy Grail of coffee,” according to Nature Biotechnology. What was once done in the wild is now done inhumanely in cramped cages across Indonesia.
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LATTE, “milk” in English, is a café drink made by layering espresso, milk, and milk foam. Unlike the cappuccino, the latte uses twice the amount of milk and about a third the amount of milk foam. Next to straight espresso and cappuccinos, lattes consistently rank in the top three café drinks.
LEVEL is the degree to which a coffee has been roasted. Light roasts tend to be brighter and more vibrant, medium roasts are usually smoother and sweeter, and the darker roasts move to toasty, bold, and intense flavors. Roast level is one of the most basic ways to determine if you’ll like a certain coffee.
LIGHT ROAST coffee is roasted to 350°F – 414°F or a broad Agtron score of 71 – 100. Light roasting is preferable for coffees grown at exceedingly high elevations to preserve and highlight their delicate, complex flavors of spiced wine, vanilla, and citrus. Light roasts tend to be tea-like with a zesty acidity, best brewed as espresso, pour over, or cold brew.
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MACCHIATO is a café drink made using a shot of espresso and foamy milk. Traditionally, a macchiato is 1 oz. of espresso with a “mark”—its English translation—of milk foam on top. The drink has evolved to include 1 – 2 oz. of milk in addition to the milk foam and espresso.
MOCHA JAVA is the original coffee blend, and possibly the first ever coffee crime. Mocha Java was the result of a 1685 Dutch East India Company smuggling operation in which traders mixed beans from the port of Mokha in Yemen with Javanese beans to stretch them. The result was a wine-like cup set on a foundation of earthy chocolate.
MEDIUM ROAST coffee is roasted to 415°F – 440°F or a broad Agtron score of 41 – 70. Medium roasting creates a coffee profile that is equal parts origin and roaster, meaning the most prominent origin notes are balanced out by the toasty flavors the roasting process imparts. Depending on the coffee, medium roasts are oftentimes omni-roasts, in that they can be brewed in any brewer. Espresso shores up the chocolatey foundation with added body, nutty notes can mellow out auto-drip’s bitterness, cold brew highlights the richness, and pour over clears out the oils, giving you a clean picture of the origin with light Maillard vignetting.
MOONSOONED coffee, like many great things, was created by accident. A ship transporting green coffee from India to Europe on the Cape of Good Hope hit India’s monsoon season. Constant humidity and ocean winds caused the beans to swell, change texture, and take on a pale-yellow color. These monsooned beans were a hit in Europe for their mellow, smooth flavor. Today, monsooned coffee is made in condition-controlled warehouses. Not as wild, but just as delicious.
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ORGANIC certifications signify a coffee was produced with great environmental care that preserves or enhances the native ecosystem. USDA certified organic farms are strictly forbidden from using synthetic fertilizers and fungicides/pesticides, sewage waste, radiation, and genetic engineering. Certification also nets producers an additional $0.0255 per pound increase and access to international markets they may not have had otherwise.
OU (ORTHODOX UNION) KOSHER certification, also called kashrut certification, signifies our coffee is produced in our OU-inspected facility with only kosher ingredients. While coffee is inherently kosher, artificial flavorings can render it non-kosher. When it comes to kosher decaffeinated coffee, most of our decaf offerings are water process decaf, none of which use chemicals.
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PATIO DRYING is exactly what it sounds like. Coffee is spread out thin in rows on sunny cement patios to dry. To promote even drying, the coffee is shifted every 30 – 40 minutes.
PERCOLATOR was the most popular way to brew coffee from the late 1880s until they were supplanted by auto-drip in the 1970s. Percolators have three main parts: the bottom chamber, the tube, and the filter basket. Water is added to the bottom chamber, coarse-ground coffee is added to the top. As the water is brought to a boil, the steam creates a vacuum that moves the water through the tube, saturating the coffee above before filtering back into the boiling water chamber below. Percolators fell out of fashion because they often over-extracted the coffee, making it bitter and hollow.
PEABERRY is a coffee mutation. This particular mutation is a rarity that breeds coffee cherries with only one bean inside instead of the usual two—only 5% - 10% of any given yield could be peaberries. Peaberries are about the size of the head of a thumbtack. It’s believed that, because there’s only one seed per cherry, peaberries absorb all the nutrients available. It sounds greedy, but it makes for a tasty cup.
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Q GRADERS, not unlike sommeliers, are coffee professionals certified by the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) to evaluate green and roasted coffee. To become certified, one must pass a rigorous sensory training and examination program. Our Lead Roaster, Dave, is a certified Q Grader, using his expertise to objectively assess the quality and profiles of hundreds of samples and production roasts.
QUAKERS are immature beans that don’t contain enough starch or sugar to roast properly. Though they aren’t a roast defect, it’s easiest to identify them after roasting, as they are significantly lighter in color than the rest. These beans are discarded because they can impart a grassy, straw-like flavor in the cup.
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RAINFOREST ALLIANCE certification ensures that our coffee is regularly audited to meet strict standards of social, environmental, and economic sustainability. These standards seek to promote and continuously improve biodiversity, natural resource conservation, effective planning, and farm management systems, as well as improve livelihoods and well-being.
RAISED BED drying employs waist-high tables made of wood, wire, and plastic netting to create airflow above and below coffee seeds to dry more evenly.
ROBUSTA (coffea canephora) accounts for 40% of the world’s coffee production. Unlike frontrunning arabica, robusta is hardier, thriving in conditions that aren’t necessarily ideal for coffee. Robusta can be planted densely in full sun and because it contains about 2x more caffeine, it is a natural insect and disease repellent. For US roasters, robusta is often used in blends to give the coffee that extra kick. It’s particularly used in espresso to ramp up the body.
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SINGLE ORIGIN coffees come from, for lack of a better phrase, a single origin. Single origins, and the traceability and transparency that comes with them, are an integral part of third-wave coffee. Single-origin coffees are not blends, meaning the entirety of the coffee is sourced from one place. For example, our Mexican Oaxaca comes from Oaxaca, Mexico, and nowhere else.
SHADE-GROWN describes any coffee grown beneath canopied cover. Shade-grown coffees mature more slowly than those grown in full sun, receiving more time to develop their flavors. However, taste isn’t the only benefit. Shade-grown coffee is better for the environment, as it promotes biodiversity and water retention, deters pests, and is sometimes part of a polyculture. Because coffee is often the main source of income for farmers, polycultural planting (the planting of other fruit, vegetables, herbs, etc. alongside the coffee) ensures there is always something to harvest. Shade-grown is not a recognized certification, but it does embody coffee production best practices.
SILVERSKIN is the paper-thin skin surrounding the unroasted coffee seed, just inside the parchment layer. As a coffee is roasted, the heat and constant agitation dry and flake the silverskin off, at which point it becomes chaff.
SMOOTH coffees tend to be well-rounded and very drinkable, with little to no sharp acidity. Because of their low growing altitude, coffees from Hawaii fall into this category. The combination of elevation and complex microclimate makes for mellow, mild, herbal coffee.
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THIRD-WAVE, or specialty, coffee focuses on transparency, traceability, and technique, a far cry from the preceding mass-produced (first) and café-centric (second) waves. Third-wave coffee aims to spotlight the subtleties and complexities of single-origin coffee with an economical and environmental conscience. It’s not just about selling delicious coffee, it’s about sourcing in a way that brings more profit back to the farmers and doesn’t disrupt the ecological balance. Third-wave coffee is mindful coffee.
TURKISH coffee is very finely ground (nearly powder) and water brewed in a cezve (or ibrik) partially submerged in a pan of sand over an open flame. Sand is used not only because it gets unbelievably hot but also because it heats evenly and it’s easier to control the brew. Simply, the deeper the cezve is in the sand, the quicker it will brew, which is already magically almost instantaneous. Go watch a video of it. It’s awesome.
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VARIETY (or varietal) is the name given to a coffee subspecies.
VIENNESE ROAST coffee measures in at 455°F. Here, your coffee will take on a bold mouthfeel, akin to maple syrup, with low acidity and notes of baker’s chocolate, nutmeg, and toasted nuts. Because these brews can be bitter, many people take them with milk to help balance the flavor out.
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WATER PROCESS, such as Swiss Water, Royal Water, and mountain water, utilizes pure water to gently remove caffeine from unroasted coffee. Foregoing the chemicals used in Direct Solvent decaffeination, water-processed coffee can retain its flavor profile and taste shockingly similar to its fully caffeinated counterparts.
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