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79 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Acidity |
acidity: A sensation in the mouth when tasting coffee. Acidity is a bright, lively, sparkling feeling, most often associated with citrus fruits and vinegars. In coffee, acidity is typically considered desirable. If too intense, it may seem sour, like a lemon, rather than merely acidy, like an orange.
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Afterburner |
afterburner: A device attached to a roasting machine that burns away particulates coming from the roaster and chaff from roasting beans, thus reducing emissions to a minimum. Afterburners can cost $ 14,000 and more, even for a small roaster.
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Aftertaste |
aftertaste: The echo of flavor that remains once coffee leaves the mouth. The intensity of that echo or its pleasantness is the aftertaste. It can also be called the finish. Aftertaste is a basic characteristic of coffee quality.Thurston, Robert W.. Coffee: A Comprehensive Guide to the Bean, the Beverage, and the Industry . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition.
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Agtron Numbers |
Agtron numbers: A measure of roast level by color. An Agtron is a spectrometer, a machine designed to measure light intensity. Agtron machines measure the reflectance of light from whole bean or ground coffee and translate it into a number on a scale of 0 to 100. Higher numbers represent more reflectance and, hence, lighter coffees. |
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Arabica |
arabica: Common name of the species Coffea arabica. It is one of 124 known and published species in the genus. Considered to be the most pleasant tasting of the Coffea species, arabica makes up about 70 percent of world coffee production.
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Aroma |
aroma: The smell of brewed coffee. It has no specific smell-type other than “coffeeness.” As green coffee ages or roasted coffee stales, the intensity of aroma tends to decrease.
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Bags |
The packaging for coffee beans, traditionally a jute sac containing 60 kilograms, or 134 pounds, of coffee beans. See also packaging.Thurston, Robert W.. Coffee: A Comprehensive Guide to the Bean, the Beverage, and the Industry . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition.
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Balance |
balance: All of the individual characteristics of a cup of coffee that interact to create a united taste for the cup. Balance describes how they fit together in relation to one another.
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Barista |
barista: The person operating the coffee brewing equipment, principally the espresso machine, in a coffee shop. Although Italian in origin, the word only became established in that language in the 1930s, when the Fascist administration attempted to suppress foreign words such as “barman.” But “barista” became firmly established as both a standard term and a specialized profession only with the rise of international espresso culture. |
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Biennial Bearing |
biennial bearing: The two-year production cycle in coffee where one year a tree produces a lot of coffee and in the next year much less. It results from coffee’s phenology: the branches that will produce the next year’s crop are unable to grow very much because they are competing for nutrients with the current maturing berries. Biennial bearing can be mitigated with pruning and shade.
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Big 4 (or 5) |
Big Four (sometimes Big Five): The largest international coffee companies, which market largely commodity (or commercial) coffee. With their headquarters country and their leading brands, they are now: Nestle (Nescafe, Nespresso, Taster’s Choice), Switzerland; Smucker’s (Folgers), U.S.; Sara Lee (Douwe Egberts, Senseo, and others), U.S.; Kraft Foods (Maxwell House, Sanka), U.S.; and, in some counts, Tchibo (Tchibo, Piacetto), Germany. Together these companies control 50– 60 percent of global coffee sales. The composition of the Big Four has changed in recent years, as Procter & Gamble and Phillip Morris (now Altria) have left the coffee business.
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Body |
body: The level of viscosity or thickness in coffee. Two common drinks with noticeable body are milk and red wine. Skim milk has little body; whole milk has a lot. Red wine has more body than white does.
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C price |
C price (C market, Coffee C): The “C” price refers to a number in dollars per 100 pounds of arabica coffee on the New York ICE commodity exchange. Officially called the Coffee “C” ®, the C price is usually cited in dollars per pound, for example $ 2.46. How the C price is derived is a complex process; see chapter 15, “The ‘Price’ of Coffee.”
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Caffe Latte |
caffè latte: A single or double shot of espresso topped with large quantity of steamed milk and a small head of foamed milk on top in which latte art can be created.
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California Red Worms |
California red worms: Widely used in Latin America, worms that digest coffee fruit skins and pulp and, in a matter of weeks, produce useful compost. One of the most effective means of reducing pollution and waste from the harvest and of recycling material on the farms.
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Cappuccino |
cappuccino: A single or double shot of espresso, topped with equal parts of steamed and foamed milk— increasingly served “dry,” that is, with a greater proportion of foam which has often been heavily aerated (macro-foamed). Often topped with a dusting of cocoa powder or cinnamon.
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Catch Crop |
catch crop: A crop, usually a fast-growing one, that can be used to provide some income while waiting for another crop (such as tree crops like rubber or cacao) to reach economic maturity. |
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Chemical composition |
A cup of coffee likely has at least 300 different compounds in the liquid brew. Over 1,000 compounds have been detected in the aroma. |
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Cherry |
cherry: The ripe coffee fruit (or berry). Generally used in the singular, it is called “cherry” because some varieties have a deep red color when at their peak, ready to be picked, and because the size of coffee cherry is often close to that of cherries. Certain varieties produce yellow, pink, or orange ripe berries, which are still called cherry. In Spanish, coffee fruits are called “grapes” (uvas). |
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Broca |
coffee berry borer: Hypothenemus hampei. This pest originated in Angola but now exists in nearly every coffee-producing country in the world. It is considered the most disastrous coffee pest as it is very difficult to control and, so far, impossible to eliminate. The female insect bores through a coffee cherry and into the seed, where she lays eggs. Once they hatch, the newborn insects mate and the pregnant females leave to begin the cycle anew. |
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Coffee cake |
coffee cake: Also called puck. The disk of used coffee grounds left in the portafilter after an espresso shot. Baristas check wetness and hardness of the puck as a way of determining whether the shot has been drawn properly. |
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coffee leaf rust |
coffee leaf rust: A fungal disease (Hemileia vastatrix) considered one of coffee’s worst pests. The fungus appears as rust-colored spots on leaves, causing them to function less efficiently and, in many cases, killing them and the whole tree. It is considered the most severe coffee leaf disease. Arabica is much more susceptible than robusta to rust. Robusta’s superior resistance is one major reason for breeding programs that aim to incorporate robusta lineage into arabica varieties. |
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CQI |
Coffee Quality Institute (CQI): A nonprofit organization affiliated with the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA). It works internationally to improve the quality of coffee and the lives of the people who produce it through training, building institutional capacity, and operating quality standard systems. CQI provides training and technical assistance to coffee producers and operates both the Q and R programs (for arabica and robusta coffee, respectively), which certify cuppers to grade coffees using a standardized system of evaluation. |
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Columbian Milds |
Colombian milds: Wet-processed Colombian coffee that serves as the standard level of quality for Coffee C. |
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Conilon |
Brazilian Robusta |
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defects |
defects: Problems in the beans that can result in unpleasant tastes. Defects may result from pest infestation, overripeness, overfermentation in processing, diseases, and other problems in cultivation, processing, or storage. Broken beans are also considered defects, as their multiple surfaces are inviting to mold. |
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Demeter |
Demeter: Named after the Greek goddess of fertility, an organization based in Philomath, Oregon, that certifies coffee grown according to biodynamic principles. See also biodynamic agriculture. |
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Demucilation |
demucilation: A form of washed processing in which the mucilage is mechanically removed from the seed. The seeds are then moved directly to drying or soaked in water. |
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Density |
density: A physical property of an object that is defined as its mass per its volume. Green coffee can be graded according to density using a density table. Denser coffees are considered to be of higher quality. |
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Depulping |
depulping: The action of removing the outer layer of fruit, the pulp, from the coffee cherry. This is the common term in languages other than English, which for some reason uses “pulping” instead. |
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Drying |
drying: The process in which, before coffee is shipped and roasted, it is dried down to a certain level of moisture (humidity). This can occur using the sun on specially made drying decks, the ground, tarpaulins, or elevated (African) screens. Alternatively, mechanical dryers can be used to reduce the seed’s moisture content to 9– 12 percent. |
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Ejido System |
ejido system: In Spanish-speaking Latin America, a system of land tenure in which all land is held in common, for example by a village, but plots are farmed individually. |
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Espresso beans |
espresso beans: Beans used to prepare espresso coffee (as espresso refers to a process rather than an origin). In Italy espresso is nearly always produced using a blend of beans, traditionally combining arabica and robusta beans, although the proportions vary dramatically. Many specialty blends are 100 percent arabica or even single-origin. |
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Estates |
estates: Large coffee farms using hired labor. Estate coffee is truly single-origin and is likely to be marketed as such. |
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Farm gate price |
farm gate price: The price actually paid to the farmer for coffee. Since coffee passes through many hands before it is made into a beverage, the price rises as it passes in turn from a buyer to an exporter, an importer, a roaster, and a retail establishment. |
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Fermentation |
fermentation: One of the initial stages in dealing with harvested coffee. After picking, the cherry is generally either pulped (wet processing) or left in the skin (dry processing). In the first case, the mucilage is removed by microorganisms present in the fruit and by immersion in water. In dry processing, the microorganisms carry out mucilage degradation by themselves. Both processes bring down the level of acidity— here the word does refer to the pH scale— to below 5 or even below 4. |
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Fertilizer |
fertilizer: Any substance added to a living system that is intended to provide nutrients. In agriculture, fertilizers can be derived from organic sources (typically compost from decomposed plant matter, manure, or animal parts) or produced in factories. Organic and synthetic fertilizers may be the same in the chemical composition of the nutrients they are promising to provide |
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Futures |
futures: A system of buying and selling many commodities, especially raw materials and agricultural products. Contracts are made, usually between a large buyer and a commodities dealer, that specify a certain amount and quality of coffee to be acquired for a set price on a certain date. |
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Grading |
grading: A quality measure typically made at origin by an authorized government agency. Different governments use different criteria for grading coffee. The criteria can include coffee species, elevation at which the coffee was grown, bean size, cup quality, and defect count. |
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Hardness |
hardness: A descriptive term (largely used in Latin America) related to the altitude at which coffee is grown. Hardness can be noted as “hard bean” or “strictly hard bean” and is related to quality in the cup. Coffee berries grown at higher altitudes take longer to mature and are often considered to be of higher quality than those from lower elevations, though many consider the key element to be temperature rather than altitude. |
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Hectare |
hectare: A common measure of land area, 100 meters on a side, about 2.5 acres. Abbreviated “ha.” |
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Horeca |
horeca: The hotel-restaurant-café market for coffee, as opposed to home consumption. |
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Hulling |
hulling (or milling): The process of removing parchment from the beans. Hullers operate by rubbing the beans against each other or by gently beating them with strings or rods. Machines must be calibrated for the size of the beans put into them. Hulling too deeply or at too high a temperature will damage the beans and their taste in the cup; hulling too lightly will not remove enough parchment, which may cause problems in roasting. |
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Intercropping |
intercropping: An agricultural design in which at least two crops share the same field. It is often designed by farmers to increase their potential sources of income. By diversifying the ecological conditions, intercropping may also provide habitat for a variety of fauna. |
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ICA |
International Coffee Agreement (ICA): An agreement first signed in 1962 to set export quotas for the major coffee-growing countries. The pact was renewed three times before collapsing in 1989. A new ICA was signed in 1994 and revised in 2001 and 2007, but these agreements do not specify export quotas. |
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IWCA |
International Women’s Coffee Alliance: An organization founded in 2003 by six American women (now with chapters around the world) with the goal of improving the lives of women in coffee through financial support, special purchasing mechanisms, and technical advice. |
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liquor |
liquor: The industry term for basic brewed coffee with nothing added. |
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Lungo |
lungo: A “long” espresso, delivered to a greater volume in the cup. In Italy around 40 milliliters— which, of course, can be the standard size of an espresso elsewhere. |
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Macchiato |
macchiato: An espresso “marked” with milk— hot or cold, steamed or foamed in Italy, nearly always foamed in the Anglo-American markets. |
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Maillard reactions |
Maillard reactions: A class of chemical reactions that occur in coffee during the roasting process. They are characterized by the reaction of amino acids with sugars. In coffee, these reactions generate the compounds that are largely responsible for the brown color as well as some of the antioxidant properties |
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Moisture |
moisture (or humidity): The moisture content of the beans, determined at the final stage of processing for coffee on the farm when the beans are dried. The goal is to achieve 9– 12 percent moisture content. This level renders the seeds fairly stable and unattractive to many pests and diseases. In wet processing, the beans are dried after pulping and fermentation. In dry processing, the cherry dries as it is spread out on a patio or on drying racks. Humidity is also often checked again before coffee is roasted, as a way of helping to determine the optimal roast profile. |
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Mucilage |
mucilage: The sticky, sugary component of a coffee cherry. Mucilage is the thickest layer of the coffee fruit; it is on top of the parchment. |
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dry processing |
natural (or dry) processing: A method of drying the coffee cherry after harvesting. In natural processing, the cherries are sent directly to a drying area, without removing any parts of the fruit. |
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Brazilian naturals |
naturals (or Brazilian naturals): Beans that are dry processed on patios until they have reached a desired level of fermentation and humidity. |
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Organoleptic |
organoleptic: A term that describes perceptions of the human senses, particularly the senses of taste and smell. In coffee, it typically refers to the drinker’s taste experience of the beverage, as in “organoleptic quality.” |
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Other milds |
other milds: Beans that are similar to Colombian milds. Colombian milds, always arabica, are the standard for Coffee C. Other similar beans, especially from Latin America, are considered in calculating the C price at any given moment. |
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Overstory |
overstory: The tallest level of trees in a forest or on a shaded coffee farm. |
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Parchment |
parchment: The hull of the coffee fruit, called pergamino in Spanish.Thurston, Robert W.. Coffee: A Comprehensive Guide to the Bean, the Beverage, and the Industry . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition. |
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Peaberry |
peaberry: A bean that develops as a single, rounded entity in the fruit instead of two separate beans with flat facing sides. Peaberries are usually the result of a common mutation, but may also develop because one embryonic seed was somehow not fertilized. About 5 percent of all coffee is peaberry. |
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Peasent |
peasant: A small farmer who is forced by law, custom, or taxes to give away much of his crops, either to an institution or individual. Peasants may contribute little to the ultimate price of an agricultural product, especially one— for example, coffee— that must be shipped overseas to consumers and that must undergo further processing before it can be sold at retail. |
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Alfred Peet |
Peet, Alfred: A Dutch immigrant to the U.S. (1920– 2007) who opened a small roastery and coffee shop in Berkeley, California, in 1966. Many of the first American enthusiasts for specialty coffee were introduced to it by Peet. |
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Phenology |
phenology: The timing of recurring biological events, for instance bird migration or the flowering of coffee plants. |
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Productivity |
productivity: Output per unit of input. Agricultural productivity depends on human or machine labor, quality of the soil, variety of coffee grown, capital inputs, and technical advice and assistance. |
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Pruning |
pruning: The process of carefully cutting back coffee trees. Coffee trees must be pruned to remain productive. Both the height (1.5– 2 meters) and girth of trees need to be kept manageable, so that hand pickers or machines can access the cherries relatively easily. Carefully planned pruning also helps reduce biennial bearing on a farm. Many different pruning strategies exist. One approach is to conduct a first or main pruning to shape the tree, maintain its desired size, remove any small shoots or “suckers” growing out of the main trunk, and cut away dead branches. This first stage is usually done with large pruning shears or, on mechanized farms, by machines with whirling blades set vertically or horizontally. A secondary round of pruning is often called “handling.” This involves “opening up the tree” by cutting away excess branches. The purpose is to induce the tree to put more of its energy into producing fruit and less into producing branches. After several years of production, a span that can vary widely by variety, place, and general conditions, a tree may be “stumped.” In Hawaii, trees may be stumped as often as every three or four years. The entire tree is cut down except for a stump perhaps 100 centimeters high, but sometimes much lower; from the remaining part a new trunk, stems, and branches will emerge.Thurston, Robert W.. Coffee: A Comprehensive Guide to the Bean, the Beverage, and the Industry . Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kindle Edition. horizontally. A secondary round of pruning is often called “handling.” This involves “opening up the tree” by cutting away excess branches. The purpose is to induce the tree to put more of its energy into producing fruit and less into producing branches. After several years of production, a span that can vary widely by variety, place, and general conditions, a tree may be “stumped.” In Hawaii, trees may be stumped as often as every three or four years. The entire tree is cut down except for a stump perhaps 100 centimeters high, but sometimes much lower; from the remaining part a new trunk, stems, and branches will emerge. |
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Honey processing |
pulped natural (or honey) processing: A drying method in which, after the coffee cherries are harvested, they are depulped, then sent directly to drying, leaving the mucilage on the seed. |
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solubles |
solubles: The compounds of the coffee bean that are extracted during brewing. |
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Sorting |
sorting: The process of removing unwanted materials from the seeds after harvesting and of separating poorer quality seeds from more valuable ones. After the parchment has been removed from the coffee seed, the seed can be sorted to remove defects and unwanted material such as twigs. The seeds can be sorted by size, density, and color. Various machines, color sorters (see chapter 61, “Mechanization”), can do this task. In countries with a vast, poor labor supply, for example Ethiopia, much sorting is done by hand, usually by women. |
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Stinker bean |
stinker bean: Defective coffee beans that produce an unpleasant, sour, fermented taste in coffee. One stinker bean is potent enough to negatively influence an entire pot of coffee. Stinkers are thought to result from overfermented beans or cherries that weren’t processed soon enough after harvesting. |
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strip harvesting |
strip harvesting: The process of pulling all coffee berries, ripe or not, from a branch of a tree in a single motion, either by hand or using portable handheld machines. |
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Q-grader cuppers |
Q-grader cuppers: Individuals who have been licensed by the Coffee Quality Institute to evaluate coffees according to the Q-system. The Q-system is based upon the SCAA coffee grading and assessment protocols. To become a Q-grader, aspirants must take courses and pass a battery of tests on sensory acuity and ability to cup coffee. The Coffee Quality Institute reported that in 2011 there were nearly 2,000 Q-graders working in more than forty countries. |
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Raisins |
raisins: Coffee cherries that dry on the tree before being harvested. They are most often associated with mechanically harvested operations. Even though the raisins remain attached to the tree, they are no longer physiologically connected to the tree. Consequently, they may overferment or the skin may acquire molds, either of which may detract from the cup quality. While high-quality liquor is difficult to attain from raisins, it is not impossible. |
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Quaker bean |
Quaker bean: Defective beans that show up in roasted coffee as pale colored beans. They were immature when harvested or suffered from stress while on the tree. In a brewed cup, they produce bitterness and have diminished intensity of most characteristics. |
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Sun-grown |
sun-grown: A coffee agricultural system in which coffee is the only crop or plant grown in the field. It is typically used to refer to coffee farming without any trees growing over and shading the coffee. |
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Sustainable |
sustainable: An approach to farming that values the long-term health of the land and environment. Much discussion has taken place in an effort to define “sustainable.” A simple approach to the word is that in sustainable agriculture, nothing valuable is removed from the soil without providing an equal replacement. Nutrients taken from the soil by plants are replaced; the soil does not degrade. Therefore the agriculture can continue indefinitely. Sustainability considers the environment, the people, and the economy. Sustainable agriculture is frequently equated with organic farming; however, little evidence supports the contention that conventional agriculture or a system balanced with conventional and organic practices can’t be sustainable. |
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Terroir |
terroir: A French term, literally soil or ground, referring to the soil and atmosphere of agriculture land. In the global coffee industry, this term refers to farms in a philosophical sense, as locales where the farmer has a particular love for the land and its produce. More specifically, terroir is used to describe the influence of the place (soil, climate, husbandry, and so forth) on the product’s quality. |
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Trophic |
trophic: Pertaining to nutrition and to nutritive processes. It can also refer to the position of a food in the food chain. |
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Value chain |
value chain: The value added to a product at each point in its processing, shipping, wholesale distribution, and retail sales. |
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Wet processing |
washed processing: The process, after harvesting the coffee fruit and squeezing the seeds from the pulp, of removing the remaining mucilage from around the seeds. The mucilage is eliminated by one of three methods: (1) The coffee is immersed in water and soaked until the mucilage is degraded (wet fermentation). (2) The coffee is not covered in water but is left to sit until the mucilage has degraded (dry fermentation, but also called “pulped naturals”). (3) Immediately after depulping, the mucilage is removed mechanically (demucilation). In each case, the seeds are usually given a final rinse/ wash to clean off any adhering material. |
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Wind |
wind: A highly important factor in coffee agriculture. Too little wind, and the leaves do not dry out, especially on their undersides, after a rain. The dampness encourages mold and especially leaf rust, which can destroy the crop of an entire tree, or many trees. Too much wind, and leaves and flowers are blown off the tree; no flowers, no fruit. |
