Why is there suddenly strawberry on my bag of coffee?

Strawberry, chocolate, peach, caramel... When you first hold a bag of specialty coffee, the flavors on the label can seem quite strange. After all, you just bought coffee, didn't you? Not strawberry tea.

Yet, coffee can genuinely have tastes and aromas that remind you of fruit, chocolate, nuts, or even flowers. And no, we didn't secretly add them.

So what do those flavors mean?

The flavors you see on a bag of coffee are called tasting notes. They describe what the taste and aromas of a coffee can remind you of.

For example, if it says strawberry on the bag, that doesn't mean your coffee literally tastes like strawberry. Perhaps you recognize the sweetness of a ripe strawberry, the fresh acidity, or that juicy, fruity character.

It actually works a bit like with wine. A wine can have notes of cherries, vanilla, or chocolate, without anyone having added those ingredients.

And fruity flavors in coffee might be less strange than you think. A coffee bean is, after all, the seed of a fruit: the coffee cherry.

How that coffee ultimately tastes is determined by many things. The variety of the coffee plant, where and at what altitude it grows, the climate, the ripeness of the coffee cherries, and the way the coffee is processed after harvest all play a role. After that, roasting also influences which characteristics ultimately emerge in your cup.

That's why one coffee can be wonderfully chocolatey and nutty, while another reminds you of strawberry, peach, or flowers.

But who decides it's strawberry?

Before such a flavor ends up on the packaging, the coffee is tasted. This often happens during a cupping: a standardized method of brewing and tasting coffee that allows various characteristics of a coffee to be properly assessed.

During tasting, among other things, aroma, sweetness, acidity, mouthfeel, and flavor are evaluated. Perhaps a combination of these characteristics strongly reminds someone of strawberry.

But taste remains personal. Where one person recognizes strawberry, another might think of raspberry, cherry, or simply red fruit. Tasting notes are therefore not a list of flavors that you absolutely must be able to find. They primarily give you an idea of the coffee's character.

And what if I don't taste any strawberry at all?

No problem. You don't have to think after one sip: "Ah yes, wild strawberry with a subtle hint of jasmine."

Especially if you haven't consciously tasted coffee often, you might primarily taste... coffee at first.

So don't try to look for one specific flavor right away. First, ask yourself if a coffee comes across as sweet, fruity, fresh, chocolatey, or nutty, for example. The more often you taste different coffees, the easier it becomes to associate more specific flavors with them.

Alternatively, try it next time you make coffee. Brew a cup without first looking at the tasting notes and decide for yourself what the taste reminds you of. Only then look at the packaging.

Maybe it says strawberry and you thought of raspberry. Maybe it says caramel and you thought of milk chocolate.

Whatever it turns out to be, I hope the cup is delicious anyway.