59 terms

The coffee glossary

Plain-English definitions for the words you meet on coffee bags, café menus and in our guides. Terms are linked from articles wherever they appear.

A

Acidity: The bright, lively, sometimes fruity or tangy quality in a coffee’s flavor — a matter of taste, not pH.
AeroPress: A hand-powered brewer, invented by Alan Adler and launched in 2005, that steeps coffee briefly and presses it through a paper filter.
Americano: Espresso diluted with hot water, giving a drink similar in strength to brewed coffee but with espresso’s flavor.
Arabica: Coffea arabica — the species behind most of the world’s coffee and nearly all specialty coffee, prized for sweetness, acidity and aroma.

Barista: A person trained to prepare espresso and other coffee drinks professionally.
Bloom: The first small pour of hot water over fresh grounds, which releases trapped carbon dioxide so the coffee bed puffs up and bubbles.
Body: How heavy or rich a coffee feels in your mouth, from light and tea-like to thick and syrupy.
Bourbon: A classic arabica variety from the island of Réunion (formerly Île Bourbon), known for sweetness and balance.
Brew Ratio: The proportion of coffee to water, written like 1:16 — one gram of coffee for every sixteen grams of water.
Burr Grinder: A grinder that crushes beans between two abrasive burrs set a precise distance apart, producing much more even particles than a blade grinder.

Caffeine: A natural stimulant (1,3,7-trimethylxanthine) found in coffee seeds; it works mainly by blocking adenosine receptors in the brain.
Cappuccino: An espresso drink topped with steamed milk and a thick layer of foam, traditionally around 150–180 ml in total.
Cascara: The dried skins and pulp of the coffee cherry, steeped like tea to make a fruity, lightly caffeinated drink.
Channeling: When water finds weak paths through an espresso puck and rushes through them, leaving the rest of the coffee under-extracted.
Chemex: An hourglass-shaped glass pour-over brewer invented by chemist Peter Schlumbohm in 1941, used with thick bonded paper filters.
Coffee Belt: The band around the equator — roughly between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn — where coffee grows.
Coffee Cherry: The fruit of the coffee plant. Each cherry usually holds two seeds — the coffee beans.
Cold Brew: Coffee steeped in cold or room-temperature water for many hours — usually 12 to 24 — producing a smooth, low-bitterness drink.
Cortado: A small Spanish espresso drink “cut” with roughly an equal amount of warm milk.
Crema: The golden-brown foam on top of a fresh espresso, made of carbon dioxide bubbles, emulsified oils and fine coffee particles.
Cupping: The standardized tasting method professionals use to evaluate coffee: grounds steep in bowls, the crust is broken, and the coffee is slurped from a spoon.

Decaf: Coffee with nearly all of its caffeine removed — in the US at least 97%; EU rules cap roasted decaf at 0.1% caffeine.
Degassing: The release of carbon dioxide from freshly roasted beans over the days and weeks after roasting.
Dialing In: Adjusting grind size, dose, yield and time until a coffee — usually espresso — tastes its best.
Dose: The weight of dry ground coffee used for a brew or an espresso shot.

Espresso: A concentrated coffee brewed by forcing hot water through finely ground, compacted coffee at about 9 bar of pressure, typically in 25–30 seconds.
Extraction: Dissolving flavor compounds from coffee grounds into water. Balanced brews usually extract about 18–22% of the coffee’s dry mass.

Flat White: An espresso drink from Australia and New Zealand with a thin, velvety layer of microfoam and a stronger coffee-to-milk ratio than a latte.
French Press: An immersion brewer in which coarse grounds steep in hot water before a metal mesh plunger separates them, giving a full-bodied cup.

Gesha: A coffee variety, also spelled Geisha, originally from Ethiopia and made famous by Panama for its jasmine-like floral aroma.
Green Coffee: Raw, unroasted coffee seeds — stable for months and grassy-smelling rather than coffee-like.
Grind Size: How coarse or fine coffee is ground. Finer grinds extract faster, so the grind must match the brew method and time.

Honey Process: A processing method in which the skin is removed but some or all of the sticky fruit mucilage is left on the bean to dry, adding sweetness and body.

Latte: Espresso with a generous amount of steamed milk and a thin layer of foam — the milkiest of the classic espresso drinks.
Latte Art: Patterns such as hearts, tulips and rosettas poured into the surface of a milk drink using well-textured microfoam.
Lungo: A “long” espresso pulled with more water — around a 1:3 ratio or longer — for a larger, lighter and often more bitter shot.

Macchiato: An espresso “stained” with a small spoonful of milk foam.
Microfoam: Steamed milk with tiny, uniform bubbles, giving a glossy, paint-like texture ideal for flat whites and latte art.
Moka Pot: A stovetop brewer, patented by Alfonso Bialetti in 1933, that pushes hot water up through coffee using steam pressure.

Natural Process: A processing method in which whole coffee cherries are dried in the sun before the beans are removed, often producing fruity, wine-like flavors.

Over-Extraction: Pulling too much from the grounds, which makes coffee taste bitter, harsh and drying.

Peaberry: A coffee cherry that grows a single, rounder seed instead of the usual two flat-sided ones.
Portafilter: The handled basket holder that carries ground coffee and locks into an espresso machine’s group head.
Pour-Over: A manual brewing method in which hot water is poured over grounds in a filter cone, letting gravity draw it through.
Puck: The compacted disk of spent coffee left in the portafilter after an espresso shot.

Q Grader: A professional coffee taster certified by the Coffee Quality Institute to score coffee using standardized protocols.

Ristretto: A “restricted” espresso shot pulled with less water — roughly a 1:1 to 1:1.5 ratio — for a sweeter, more concentrated drink.
Roast Level: How far beans were roasted — from light to dark — which shapes their acidity, sweetness, body and bitterness.
Robusta: Coffea canephora — a hardy, high-yield coffee species with roughly twice the caffeine of arabica and a heavier, more bitter taste.

Single Origin: Coffee from one country, region, farm or lot, rather than a blend of several origins.
Specialty Coffee: Coffee that scores 80 points or more out of 100 under the Specialty Coffee Association’s grading standards.

Tamping: Pressing ground coffee firmly and evenly into the portafilter basket before brewing espresso.
TDS: Total dissolved solids — how concentrated a coffee is, usually around 1.2–1.5% for filter coffee and 8–12% for espresso.
Third Wave Coffee: A movement that treats coffee as an artisanal product, like wine — emphasizing origin, lighter roasting, transparency and craft brewing.
Typica: One of the oldest cultivated arabica varieties and the genetic base of many others.

Under-Extraction: Pulling too little from the grounds, which makes coffee taste sour, thin and sometimes salty.

V60: Hario’s cone-shaped pour-over dripper, named for its V shape and 60-degree angle, with spiral ribs and one large hole.

Washed Process: A processing method in which the fruit is removed and the beans are fermented and washed before drying, producing clean, bright coffees.

Yield: The weight of liquid espresso in the cup — at a 1:2 ratio, 18 g of coffee yields about 36 g of espresso.