Kinds of Coffee

It's common knowledge that there is a wide flavor spectrum of teas, but it's less understood how many different kinds of coffee exist. The focus in grocery stores and even many coffee shops is largely on artificially-flavored coffees, like Hazelnut and Irish Cream.

The basic categories of coffee are: single-estate, single-origin, and blends. A single-estate coffee comes from one particular growing estate and can boast of consistent standards and flavor. A single-origin coffee is a blend of beans from different estates that are all located in the same area, subject to the same climate. A blend of coffee combines beans from different origins for a coffee that can be more complete than any single-origin coffee could be.

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Introduction: Your Tastebuds

It's suggested that you learn about Coffee Taste Terms. This isn't because you need to be a coffee connaisseur to understand different kinds of coffees that exist, but because learning these terms will help you understand what you like in your coffee. Further, it will help you understand what characteristics you like in the particular coffees you enjoy most, and from there, what other coffees offer similar characteristics.

A personal example

My favorite coffee is Guatemalan coffee. For the most part, it's specifically from the Guatemalan province of Antigua, but I've had numerous blends of Guatemalan coffee from different estates and areas and can't say I met one I didn't like. It helped me to know what features stand out to the connaisseur in Guatemalan coffee so I could find others I might like just as much.

As it turns out, the connaisseur would tell you that Guatemalan coffee has a strong floral and spicy aroma that complements what it offers to your sense of taste. Other coffees with the same characteristic include Arabian Mocha from Yemen and Ethiopian coffee, giving me two more to try. It also has a high coffee acidity, medium to full body or heaviness in your mouth, and a complex flavor made up of several coffee taste nuances. Other coffees with the same characteristics include Yemeni Mocha again, Sumatran, Kenyan, and Ugandan, just to name a few.

From one coffee that I know I love, I now have several more to try based on my knowledge of coffee taste terms.

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Your Coffee Checklist

As you read on, consider keeping a checklist of different coffees you would like to try. As you try each one, you'll know what you like or dislike about it. In fact, the more you try, the more complete your palate memory and sophistication towards understanding the wide range of coffee flavors and accents.

Refer to our Report Card

You might have difficulty finding this variety of coffee at most local sources and certainly at your grocery store. Online sources for coffee offer a full variety stocked in their central depot and roasted fresh to fill your order. Our content on buying coffee online outlines our own unbiased consumer Report Card to help you evaluate online sources for coffee.

Where you see the titles highlighted orange, consider adding that coffee to your list. I will try to give a sense of what to expect from this coffee. For each highlighted item, I will also provide some recommendation about what reputable online coffee vendor is known to sell quality whole beans of this coffee. You will see the Starbucks Store recommended for some coffees below...the Seattle-based chain does know coffee very well, and offers a wider range of beans online than they do in any of their individual retail stores.

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The Coffee Blend

There are many different accents to coffee. No one coffee cultivated anywhere in the world contains them all, and you'd want to enjoy them separately anyway. You need to try the different coffees of the world to cover the whole flavor spectrum, and this leads us into blends. While coffees by region contain their own accents, they can be blended together into fuller-flavored coffees that capture these contrasting nuances.

To make a blend of coffee, the roaster -or store or restaurant- takes different beans and blends them to recipe to create a more complete flavor than any individual coffee in the blend could have alone. You will often hear about a Signature Blend, which is the vendor's select recipe of blending beans. When you find a Signature Blend you like, remember it. It means somebody has captured what you're looking for in a good coffee. The vendor might also likely carry a Breakfast Blend, which is meant to be a smooth and mellow flavor for your first cup of the day.

Signature Blend

Not a supermarket coffee brand marketed and packaged as a "Signature Blend". I'm recommending the Signature Blend of your reputable source for coffee. If you like your source for whole coffee beans, try their Signature Blend because odds are a qualified coffee connaisseur has developed a flavorful and consistent recipe. If your source for coffee doesn't have a Signature Blend, they likely offer other blends with fancy names, all meant to be Signature Blends of sorts, likely a House Blend or The President's Blend. You can find these blends at:

• Peet's Major Dickason's Blend
• Starbucks House Blend (Medium)
• Starbucks Caffe Verona (Bold)
• Starbucks French Roast (Extra Bold)
• Boca Java's Boca Villa House Blend

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The Mocha Java

One of the most common and likely oldest blends of coffee is the famous Mocha Java, a mix of Yemen Mocha beans and Java Arabica beans. The Yemen Mocha beans are named after the port of Yemen where the first coffee beans were exported to the world. The Java Arabica beans are cultivated in Indonesia. Mocha coffee not to be confused with the Cafe Mocha has a rich taste meant to contrast with the lighter tone of the Java coffee. The two beans contrast to cover a wide range of coffee accents, which has led to the popularity of the blend.

Mocha Java

In your quest for the perfect cup of coffee at home, you must try a cup of Mocha Java coffee. This combination is the 'peanut butter and chocolate' of the coffee world...a balanced and flavorful coffee experience. It is meant to combine two beans that are the perfect complement to each other. Available at: Boca Java

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Understanding Coffee Names

Before delving into single-origin and single-estate coffees, it's time for a tutorial on coffee names at a glance.

Flavored Coffee

The first thing to understand is that no fruit, nut, or cream is involved in cultivating, packaging, or roasting coffee beans. In other words, 'hazelnut', 'vanilla', 'raspberry', 'Irish cream', etc. are not telling you anything about where the bean came from and therefore, what care and quality you can expect. These speak to flavor oils added to the beans during the roasting process. At this step, any flavor imaginable can be added to the bean and this flavoring will "fuse" with the coffee so that even when ground, very little of it is lost in the brew. The two most popular are Hazelnut and Irish Cream.

Flavored coffees are very popular, and if you find one you like, don't be afraid to keep some on hand for when you're looking for a little lighter fare. I personally believe Hazelnut and Cinnamon are great complements to coffee. Beware of a lower grade of coffee bean, since the roaster would not likely flavor a high-grade of bean.

European Coffee

Coffee is not cultivated in any European country. If you hear a European country in a coffee name, it is not making reference to where the bean came from. It is either telling you the darkness of the roast or the way in which the coffee was brewed. Turkish Coffee and Italian Coffee both make reference to brewing methods, and you can learn more by clicking here.

The other use of European names in coffee have to do with darkness of roast, the preferred roast made famous by those parts of Europe.

Viennese Coffee

Viennese Coffee refers to a Medium Dark Roast, the kind usually used with espresso.

French Coffee

French Coffee refers to a Dark Roast.

Italian or Dark French Coffee

Italian or Dark French Coffee refers to the Very Dark Roast made popular by Starbucks, where acidity is essentially roasted right out of the bean.

Learn more about roast style and its effect on flavor.