Previously, we talked a little bit about some of the coffee terms that you’re likely to hear if you hang around coffee geeks enough. We tend to be a bit floral sometimes when we talk. Those terms centered around the flavors and aromas that we tend to find in coffee.
This time, we’d like to look at a couple of more terms that talk more about coffee beans themselves:
When we’re talking about coffee beans….
Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Dark Roast – a single origin coffee
Single Origin – Single Origin coffees come from a single plantation, region or country. Purists would say it needs to be all from the same plantation or even the same plot and even roasted the same way. Ethiopian Yirgacheffe is a single origin coffee as is our Growers First Honduras and Mexico Oaxaca. We have a whole category on our web site dedicated to single origin coffees.
Blends – Blends are when beans from several regions and/or roast profiles are mixed together in order to get the best of several different flavors. Breakfast Blend, Market Blend and Forte Espresso Blend are all examples of coffee blends.
Arabica Coffee – One of two major types of coffee plants – robusta is the other. Arabica coffees are far superior to robusta. Arabica coffee is grown only at high elevations (usually over 1500 meters above sea level) and are some of the world’s best coffees. FreshGround Roasting only sells high quality arabica coffee beans.
Robusta Coffee – Often found on grocery store shelves in big red containers. Truly tastes like crap. Robusta coffee plants are highly resistant to disease and are grown in huge plantations at elevations as low as sea level. Because of the large, mass produced nature of robusta, it is extremely inexpensive to produce. Vietnam is the world’s largest exporter of robusta coffee. We don’t sell any robusta coffee – but you already knew that.