Understanding the words used in the industry to describe coffee is not something we need to worry too much about as consumers, but its good to understand the words used to describe the coffees grown at the farm, harvested and picked by the farmers imported and roasted by your roaster.
Coffee is similar to wine when thinking about characterising flavours, aromas and tastes. Usually we use terms like bitter, sweet, sour, fruity or chocolate, but the coffee industry uses more complicated selection to classify their coffee beans. Instead of using words like fruity, the pros will instead use words like berry, dried fruit or other fruit and then go on further to classify berry as blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, strawberry.
Over the last decade, consumers have increased their understanding and knowledge of coffee flavours with their tastes becoming more diverse. No longer can a coffee be described simply as coffee - although we as Australian's don't generally buy into the snobbery associated with many things, we do quietly like to know and appreciate the differences.
So, although you wont be ordering coffee that is ashy / smoky and a little nutty with hints of honey and chocolate, you'd be right on the money if you ordered a bag of Mocha Prince which has coffee beans from Colombia, Brazil, Kenya and a few others!
