Sweetness

All coffee should be sweet.

When I do trainings I always pull some good espresso shots and have the students taste the espresso as I help describe what they are tasting. I'm always careful to point out that the "good" definition means good for that particular coffee. For instance, a good shot of Intelligentsia's Black Cat is going to be dark-toned, chocolatey, syrupy and full-bodied. A good shot of Terroir's Daterra Espresso will be clean, fruity, and with a pipe tobacco characteristic. Trying to make one taste like the other would be a big mistake. There's room in the world of coffee for both, and for many other kinds of coffee, and thank goodness for that.

But they have one thing in common: when properly prepared, they are sweet.

Everyone has different tastes. Different cultures can handle different tastes and different strange foods. But there's not a culture that I've ever encountered that doesn't like sweet things. We've evolved to love sweet things because sugars are one of the most concentrated forms of energy, and because sweetness is a sign that food is ripe and not spoiled.

When people learn what I do, they sometimes say as if by way of apology, "Oh... I drink coffee with lots of cream and sugar. You must think that's terrible." It's not terrible at all. It's natural. You evolved to like sweet things. And most coffee, unfortunately, is not sweet. So it's natural to put sugar or Splenda or what have you in there. Then, once people get used to a certain way of drinking their coffee, they are understandably reluctant to change it up. But as you know, reader, it doesn't have to be that way.

Coffee is a fruit, and the seeds of that fruit (you know... "beans") are lovely sweet when nurtured and cared for properly.

So when you evaluate a coffee, and you need something to wrap your mind around to begin your evaluation — and anchor point for your evaluation — you can start with sweetness. Is this coffee sweet? How noticeable is the sweetness? What is the character of that sweetness?

And if it's not sweet, you should demand better coffee, from yourself or from your barista or roaster. Later this week I will look at the places in the process of growing, roasting, and preparing coffee where sweetness is created or destroyed.

(A very special kind of Sweetness).

Comments

[R J H]

Beautiful post Daniel!

[Daniel Humphries]

Thanks, RJ!

[Alex Linebrink]

GOOD words! It's soooo frustrating when I meet people who think coffee is supposed to be a bitter drink just because that's all they've ever had. I've managed to convince a few off of their sugar additions with some good, fresh roasts.

Can you talk about the sweetness half-life for coffee after roasting (and according to other timelines) sometime soon? I realize it differs a TON for different coffees, but the difference in sweetness between freshly roasted and even a week old roast is HUGE.

Thanks again Daniel--- you ROCK!

[Daniel Humphries]

I always tell people that coffee has a natural bitter component, too. If you have ever had pure caffeic acid in solution with water, you will know what I mean. Caffeine is BITTER, as are many of the other compounds in coffee. But the bitterness should not dominate the sweetness. Something can have bitterness and sweetness in it at the same time... they are not mutually exclusive. But, yes, most coffee is unfortunately long on the bitterness and short on sweet.

As for sweetness changing as coffee ages, that's a great question! I'll try to address it soon!

[Brendan]

Really looking forward to the post on roasting.

[HP]

Daniel,

Thank you for this post.

I was at the Intelligentsia Coffee Shop on N Broadway St couple of months back and ordered a shot of Espresso. I went with an expectation that the crema will have sweet notes and the coffee bitter and they both will balance out.

When I slurped the first sip, I was a little surprised as it was really sour and there were not sweet or bitter notes, though the taste lingered for a long time.

Is that how the Black Current tastes?

[Daniel Humphries]

HP:

Yes, sour crema can be quite the unpleasant surprise. It happens to the best coffees sometimes, and to the best baristas. I don't think that the Black Cat is "supposed" to taste like that.

As for the other factors you mention, without tasting it myself it would be hard for me to evaluate it. It's very, very easy to mess up an espresso, even for an excellent company like Intelligentsia. That's what makes it so amazing that they are consistently so excellent!