If you ask ten people what good coffee tastes like, you will get ten different answers.
Chocolatey. Fruity. Floral. Nutty...
None of those are wrong, but they aren’t helpful either, especially if you are struggling with coffee that just doesn’t taste good.
Good coffee is a lot less about the flavour notes, and a lot more about something much simpler: taste.
Taste vs Flavour
Before going further, it helps to separate these two ideas that often get mixed together.
Flavour is the full experience. It includes aroma, texture, and all the subtle notes you might read on a bag of coffee. Two coffees can have completely different flavours and both be “good”.
Taste is more basic. It is what your tongue detects:
Sweet, sour, salty, bitter & umami
Every coffee can be understood through the first four of those tastes, and how they can create balance.
That balance is what separates a good espresso from the bad and the ugly.
How to better understand taste and balance
There is an easy exercise you can try for yourself to help understand taste called the split shot.
All you need is:
- An espresso machine
- Your usual coffee
- Four cups
Dial your coffee in at a 1:2 ratio in about 30 seconds.
For example, 18g ground coffee in 36g espresso out, if longer than 32 seconds grind courser, if shorter than 28 seconds grind finer
Now, instead of collecting the whole shot in one cup, switch cups during the extraction:
- Cup 1: 0 to 10 seconds
- Cup 2: 11 to 16 seconds
- Cup 3: 17 to 22 seconds
- Cup 4: 23 to 30 seconds
You now have one espresso but split into four parts. Each one will highlight a different taste.
What you will taste
Cup 1 - Salty
This is where you will taste most of the salty compounds. On its own, it is not particularly enjoyable, but in a full shot, it helps support other tastes.
Cup 2 - Sour
Organic Acids dissolved from the coffee beans creates a sour taste. Think citrus fruits or green apple.
You will notice it strongest along the sides of your tongue. It appears quickly and disappears just as fast as well as often making your mouth water.
Cup 4 (Yes, we are skipping cup 3 for now) - Bitter
Bitter compounds dissolved from the coffee beans create a bitter taste. Think dark chocolate, tonic water and kale/brussels sprouts.
Bitter taste sits at the back of your tongue and lingers. Too much bitterness can leave a dry, harsh finish.
Cup 3 - Sweet
This is where things come together.
What we describe as sweetness in coffee does not come from sugar in the way you might expect. It comes from the balance between acidity (sour) and bitterness.
When those two are in the right proportion, the sharpness softens and the harshness fades. What remains is a rounded and sweet impression, mostly tasted at the front middle of the tongue.
So again, the question is, what does “good coffee” actually taste like?
Good coffee is balanced.
There is enough acidity to keep it lively. Enough bitterness to give it structure. But most importantly the balance between the two makes sweetness the dominant taste and experience.
Using this information to make bad coffee taste good
You do not need to split every shot you make, but understanding this process helps when something tastes off.
From the split shot we have learned the order taste is extracted out of coffee is, firstly salty, then sour, then bitter, and if the sour and bitter tastes are balanced, we unlock the sweetness that lies in between.
The easiest way to achieve balanced espresso is to keep all brew variables locked apart from grind size. For example, using a 1:2 ratio recipe with a consistent brew water temperature
If your espresso tastes:
- Sharp, overly sour, lacking sweetness (remember cup 1 and 2) it is likely under-extracted, in this case, grind finer to increase shot time, in turn increasing how much bitterness is extracted, and bringing balance.
- Hollow, harsh, lingering, dry and bitter, (remember cup 4) it is likely over-extracted, in this case grind courser to decrease shot time, in turn reducing how much bitterness is extracted and again, bringing balance.
The Takeaway
Good coffee is not about chasing specific flavour notes.
It is about understanding taste and extraction, and adjusting until everything comes into balance.
Once you start tasting with that in mind, you can truly answer the question, What does good coffee actually taste like?
