AA
Capitalized letters are grade indicators usually describing the bean size.

Acidity
In coffee-taste terminology, acidity is a positive term: It refers to the bright, sharp, and pleasant tartness that accompanies the high, thin notes and the dryness the coffee leaves at the back of the palate and under the sides of the tongue. An "acidy" coffee is analogous to the sharpness found in a dry wine. The acid notes are sharp and bright in a Mexican bean, softer and richer in a Sumatran bean. Acidity differs from sourness, which in coffee terminology means an unpleasant sharpness.

Aftertaste
The taste of brewed coffee vapors released from the residue remaining in the mouth after swallowing. They aftertaste can range from carbony to chocolaty to spicy to turpeny.

Aged
After harvesting, enzyme activity in the green coffee bean creates a chemical change during the aging process. This taste taint gives coffee beans greater body and less acidity.

Aged coffees
Aged coffees, and some old crop, low-grown coffees, have little acidity and taste almost sweet.

Alternative trade
See fair trade

Angerona
A Cuba coffee plantation established in the early 1800s, that UNESCO declared part of Humankind's Heritage.

Arabica
The most important species of the coffee plant, the Coffea arabica, or Arabica coffee, accounts for 85% to 90% of world coffee production. The European botanist Linnaeus assigned the name to the coffee tree while categorizing the Arabian peninsula's flora.

The flavors in Arabica beans become concentrated when coffee trees grow slowly, as occurs at altitudes of 3,000 to 6,500 feet. The arabica tree demands careful cultivation because of its susceptibility to disease, drought, and frost, and it yields only 1 to 1.5 pounds of green coffee per year. These beans have a much more refined flavor than robustas, and they contain less caffeine: about 1 percent of arabica beans are caffeine by weight.

Armenia
The name of a well-known coffee grown in Colombia's central cordillera, that takes its name after the city of Armenia, in which it is marketed.

Aromas
Coffee has more than 900 volatile aromas, encompassing everything from the earthy tones of some dry processed beans to Yirgacheffe's fragrant and flowery citrus note.

Balanced
A coffee that neither localizes taste at any one point on the palate, or has one quality that overwhelms others.

Beans
Coffee beans are really seeds or pits of the fruit called coffee cherries. Each cherry normally contains two flat beans. An exception is the peaberry, which only grows one bean to a cherry. The bean is protected by a parchment, which is covered with a slimy layer of mucilage. The coffee bean is coated with a thin layer called the silverskin.

Bitter
The taste felt at the back of the tongue. Dark Roasts are intentionally bitter.

Bland
The nondescript flavor typical of low-grown robusta coffees.

Blend
Two or more individual varietals of coffee.

Blending
By blending beans of different origins and characteristics, roasters develop coffees that combine characteristics in different beans to produce entirely new flavors and aromas. To maintain consistent qualities, green beans are generally blended prior to roasting.

Body
The sense of heaviness that coffee has in the mouth.

Bogota
The name of a well-known coffee grown in Colombia's eastern cordillera, that takes its name after the city of Bogota, in which it is marketed.

Bouquet
The combination of aromas that the volatile organic compounds present in coffee create.

Bourbon
A variety of arabica

Brackish
The stale taste caused by excessive heat after brewing. Evaporation of water leaves behind salts and alkaline inorganic material, giving a brackish taste.

Brazil
Brazil, which produces some 35 percent of the world's coffee (22.5 million bags), is the world's leading coffee exporter. The coffee trade employs over 5 million Brazilians, most of them involved in cultivation and harvesting. Brazil is a small player in the specialty coffee market, however, because most Brazilian coffee does not have a distinctive taste.

Brew
An individual batch of a coffee beverage, as in a pot of coffee.

Bright
Another way of referring to tangy acidity.

Briny
The salty sensation, typical in greasy spoons, that comes from excessive heat after brewing.

Bucaramanga
The name of a well-known coffee grown in Colombia's eastern cordillera, that takes its name after the city of Bucaramanga, in which it is marketed.

Burundi
A landlocked country in central Africa that derives 80 percent of its foreign earnings through coffee exports. Burundi has few natural resources other than fertile agricultural land. Its population of 6.7 million is primarily subsistence-based. Burundi had a gross national product of $800 million and per capita GNP of $120 in 1999.

Caffe Americano
Espresso cut with very hot water to fill a 6-oz cup.

Caffe Mocha
A chocolate cafe latte, often topped with whipped cream.

Caffeine
A mild stimulant contained in coffee. Robusta has high caffeine levels. The human body can absorb only 300 milligrams of caffeine at a given time., additional amounts being cast off without providing additional stimulation. The human body dissipates 20% of the caffeine in the system each hour.

Canephora
See Robusta

Cappuccino
Named after the Capuchin monks, an Italian Catholic order, because the drink's cap of foam resembles the monks' hooded robes in shape and color. A cappuccino is an espresso with frothed milk spooned on top, to cap the drink and retain heat.

Caramelized
Beans that have been dipped in sugar, dextrin syrup, or molasses before roasting.

Carbony
A creosol or burnt taste caused by volatile compounds, often found in coffee's aftertaste.

Caustic
The unpleasant sour sensation on the posterior sides of the tongue, caused by alkaloids and salts.

Chaff
Paper-like fragments of the silverskin that remain on beans after processing, that fly off during roasting.

Cherry
See fruit

Chocolaty
An aroma reminiscent of unsweetened chocolate, created by a moderately volatile set of pyrazine compounds.

City roast
See full city roast

Clean
A taste without off-flavor.

Coffee
Coffee comes from the 60 or so species identified to date of the Coffea genus of the Rubiaceae family. Caffea Arabica is the most important commercial coffee, followed by Coffea canephora or Robusta coffee, Coffea liberica or Liberica coffee and Coffea dewevrei or Excelsa coffee.

Coffee is primarily grown in tropical countries, with its different species requiring different conditions. Arabica thrives best at hilly elevations between 700 and 1,700 meters and temperatures between 15-24° C. Robusta grows at elevations between 200 metres and 800 meters, and much warmer temperatures, 24°C to 30°C. All coffee varieties require abundant rainfall: 1,500 mm to 3,000 mm annually, depending on soil conditions.

Coffee plants in the wild grow as shrubs or trees to a height of 10 metres to 15 meters, and can live for 60 years. In plantations, they are kept at three meters to enable harvesting, and remain productive for 15 to 20 years.

Colombia
A mainstay of the country's economy since the 1870s, Colombia produces 12% of the world's coffee, second only to Brazil. Coffee is Colombia's second largest legal export after oil, employing 1 million people of the nation's 40 million people.

Peasants grow the coffee at high altitudes in three mountain ranges, called cordilleras, that trisect Colombia from north to south.

The central and eastern cordilleras produce the best coffee. In the central cordillera, well known coffees are Medellin, Armenia, and Manizales, named after the cities in which they are marketed. Medellin, the best known of the three, has a rich flavor, balanced acidity and a heavier body than less acidic Armenia and Manizales. The three coffees are often marketed together as MAM.

In the eastern cordillera, Bogota and Bucaramanga are the chief coffee centers. Bogota contains less acid but is as rich as Medellin. Bucaramanga is rich in body and flavor with a low level of acid.

Colombia's coffees are processed using the wet method. Colombian Fair Trade Organic

COOCAFE
COOCAFE, Costa Rica's only certified Fair Trade Coffee Cooperative, was founded in 1988 with support of the German government. COOCAFE works to benefit 3500 coffee growers in nine co-operatives in the country's rural areas. The average farm is 1.3 hectares.

COOCAFE has participated in the Fair Trade Market as well as in the Conventional Market. Its cooperatives have funded projects such as credit for housing, land reform, and the repair and construction of municipal infrastructure.

COOCAFE and its cooperatives have also established two foundations, Hijos del Campo and Foundation Café Forestal.

Crema
A caramel-colored foam that appears on the surface of a freshly brewed espresso. The crema helps retain the espresso's flavors and aromas. Crema comes of colloids and lipids forced out into an emulsion under the espresso machine's pressure.

Cuba
The Spanish custom of drinking chocolate permeated Cuba's culture until coffee supplanted chocolate and helped define Cuban nationality.

Although traders first brought coffee to Cuba in 1748 from Santo Domingo, it wasn't exploited commercially for another half-century, when French settlers fleeing Haiti's revolution arrived in Cuba. By 1827, Cuba had more than 2,000 coffee plantations.

Cuba generally produces some 18,000 tons of coffee, with 16,000 tons coming from eastern Cuba. The central provinces produced around 1,500 tons, while Pinar del Rio province in the extreme west accounted for the remaining 500 tons. Coffee no longer grows in the deforested and exhausted soils in the plains and hills around Havana.

Cuba exports 60% to 70% of its coffee crop, with the top importers, Japan and France, purchasing about 5,000 and 2,500 tons respectively. The U.S. has not imported any Cuban coffee since the Kennedy administration imposed an economic blockade in 1962.

Cup of Joe
In outlawing alcohol on board ships in 1913, U.S. Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels made coffee the beverage of service on the ships, hence the term "Cup of Joe." Sailors wanting their coffee hot asked for a "hot cup of joe," shortened to hot joe, then hojo.

Cupping
A term for tasting coffee. Analogous to wine tasting.

Coffee cupping systematically evaluates the aroma, taste, and body of a sample of coffee beans. Cuppers look for characteristics in the taste and aroma of the coffee sample that determine its worth, or if it has been tainted through poor processing.

Decaffeination
A process that removes caffeine from coffee. Industrial methods that decaffeinate coffee involve organic solvents and carbon dioxide to remove the caffeine from the beans, processes that deplete flavor compounds. The caffeine, once discarded, is sold to pharmaceutical and soft drink companies.

Decaffeinated coffee accounts for about 10% of the world coffee market.

Demitasse
French for "half cup." A small cup used for serving espresso.

Doppio
A double shot of espresso.

Dry process
In this ancient and simple processing method, the cherries are either allowed to dry on the tree or they are picked and separated from leaves, pebbles, and other extraneous matter and laid out to dry in the sun for three to four weeks. When the pulp has dried, a hulling machine strips away the outer skin and pulp by crushing the hulls and parchment. Although the beans may not be consistent in quality, their acidity is reduced and their body and earthy flavor is increased. The dry method can produce coffee of great quality but only with great difficulty, because the climate can vary during the drying process.

The dry method produces "unwashed" green coffees. Dry method coffees include Sumatra, Ethiopia Harrar, Yemen and some of the finest coffees of Brazil.

EP
See European preparation

Espresso
From the Latin word, expresere, which means "to press out." Espresso is a brewing method, invented in Italy at the turn of the century, that pumps hot water through fine grounds at around nine atmospheres of pressure, producing a sweet, thick and rich, smooth shot of espresso.

Espresso Breve
Espresso with half and half.

Espresso Lungo
An espresso pulled long, to provide extra espresso.

Espresso Macchiato
Espresso topped with a minimal amount of steamed milk.

Espresso Machine (Automatic)
An espresso machine that uses a pump to create the pressure needed to "press out" hot water through the coffee grounds, and that also automatically controls the volume of water. With an automatic, after the user (Barista) starts the pour, the machine stops on its own after it has dispensed a pre-determined amount of water. An automatic allows every shot of espresso to be uniform.

Espresso Machine (Manual)
An espresso operated by manually moving the lever that controls a hydraulic piston. This manual movement creates the pressure necessary to brew the espresso. Few commercial machines still operate using by this method.

Espresso Machine (Semi-Automatic)
An espresso machine that uses a pump to create the pressure needed to "press out" hot water through the coffee grounds. With a semi-automatic, the user (Barista) controls the water dosage by starting the pour through a knob or switch, then stopping it when the pour is done.

Espresso Machine (Super-Automatic)
An espresso machine that has one or two coffee bean grinders built into it. The machine both grinds the beans and pours the espresso. Some super-automatics also steam or froth the milk as well.

Ethiopia
Ethiopia is the home of the coffee plant. It grows remarkably varied and distinctive coffee plants, among them the famous Yirgacheffe. Coffee represents 67 percent of the country's foreign revenue earnings.

Ethiopia Harrar
This bean is reputed to be the original coffee.

European Preparation
The superior preparation used in export to France, Spain, and Italy, whose buyers are more particular as to the grades and finish they will accept than US and Canadian roasters. These sales to Europe typically fetch higher prices in Europe than in North America.

Excelsa
Coffea dewevrei or Excelsa coffee accounts for less than 1% of total production.

Exotic
A reference to unusual aromatic and flavors.

Extraction
After the coffee cherries have been picked, the coffee beans must be removed through an extraction process. See the dry or natural method, the wet or washed method, or the semi-washed method.

Fair trade
Coffee promoted as being more equitable and less exploitative. Fair trade principles stress minimum prices; credit availability; and stable, long-term business relationships directly with farmer cooperatives, avoiding intermediaries or middlemen The fair trade movement is more visible in Europe than it is in the United States or Canada.

Fair Trade Certified
Coffee certified by Transfair that bears the Fair Trade logo and is referred to as Fair Trade Certified. Under this system, the coffee producers must undergo a screening process, adhere to the organization's rules and regulations, and submit to annual audits.

FC
See Fine Cup

Fine Cup
A term of the coffee trade that represents a top grade of coffee.

Finish
Finish describes the aftertaste that lingers on the palate after the coffee is swallowed. Heavier-bodied coffees have a longer finish than lighter-bodied coffees.

Flat
An odor in the coffee bean or brew caused by aromatic compounds that leaves the beans in the staling process after roasting or the holding process after brewing.

Flavor
Flavor in coffee is determined by its acidity and body as well as aroma.

Forestrade
A Vermont-based company that promotes sustainable development.

French Press
A coffee-making device that steeps ground coffee in boiled water. A filter presses the grounds to the bottom of the pot to remove the grounds from the coffee.

French roast
A dark roast that brings the coffee's natural oil to the bean's surface.

Fruit
The coffee plant's fruit is a soft, sweet pulpy drupe of one and a half centimeters in diameter that resembles a bright red cherry. Each fruit contains two semi-oval, furrowed seeds or beans, covered with a silver-colored membrane and enclosed in a second, tougher skin called parchment. Arabica beans are oblong with a crooked furrow, and flatter than Robusta beans, which are convex, rounder, and with a straight center furrow. Coffee fruits are picked after about seven months, when they reach the ideal stage of ripeness.

Fruity
Coffee can have a sweet sensation reminiscent of citrus fruit or a dry sensation reminiscent of berry fruit. Fruitiness is caused by a highly volatile set of aldehydes and esters found in coffee's aroma.

Full city roast
A darker roast than the North American norm. A "Full City" roasted bean will often show oil on its surface.

Gayo Organic Coffee Farmers Association
Indonesia's first Fair Trade Certified coffee co-operative. Gayo Organic Coffee Farmers Association (also known as PPKGO) is made up of small coffee farmers who produce 100% shade-grown, organic coffee. This Sumatran organization was founded through a partnership between the Gayo region's indigenous people and Forestrade, a Vermont-based company.

GC
See Good Cup

Good Cup
A term of the coffee trade that represents a grade below Fine Cup.

Handpicking
Coffee cherries do not ripen at the same time – a tree branch can simultaneously bear blossoms, green fruit, and ripe cherries – quality coffees must be picked by hand over three to four visits per tree each year. A good picker can pick about 200 pounds of coffee cherries in one day, equal to about 50 pounds of green coffee beans.

Most dry-processed coffee is picked carelessly, which compromises the flavor with unwanted green or overripe fruit. Processed with care, however, dry-processed coffees can be as good as washed coffees, if not better owing to their complexity and fruit-toned sweetness.

Hard Bean
Coffee grown at the relatively high altitudes of 4,000 to 4,500 feet. Coffee grown above 4,500 feet is referred to as strictly hard bean. The higher the altitude, the slower the beans mature, making them harder and denser than other beans and more desirable.

Harvesting
The Coffea plant blossoms continuously, and will often simultaneously bear green fruits, fully ripe red cherries and overripe ones. Handpicking is thus preferred, if it is conducted with care to avoid contaminating a harvest with either green or overripe beans. This labour-intensive harvesting method also keeps the green fruit on the tree for the next round of harvesting, leading to less waste, although overripe fruit inevitably falls to the ground. A quicker, but less accurate harvesting method is stripping.

HB
See Hard Bean

Heavy
The result of a high level of fine bean particles and insoluble proteins suspended in the coffee beverage.

Heavy roast
Coffee beans roasted to a very dark brown, with a shiny surface; equivalent to Italian Roast.

Hemileia vastatrix
See leaf rust

Home roasting
Although relatively uncommon today, until the late 1800's people roasted their coffee at home, typically using popcorn poppers and stove-top frying pans.

IFOAM
See International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements

India
Home of Monsoon coffee. The beans are stored in an open warehouse, allowing the monsoon wind to blow through. This process is said to increase the body and reduce the acidity.

Insipid
Coffee brew with a lifeless character, due to oxygen and moisture penetrating the bean after roasting, leading to a loss of organic matter.

Instant coffee
The first instant coffee was produced in 1909.

Instant taste
A taste reminiscent of instant coffee, with few of coffee's organoleptic characteristics.

Intensity
The strengths of vapors present in the coffee brew's bouquet.

International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements
A US-based non-profit organization that offers international oversight of organic certification, through a voluntary accreditation process for certification bodies active in the field of organic agriculture.

Italian roast
Coffee roasted darker than French Roast. A common roast in Italy, and in many coffee producing countries.

Java
Java became one of the world's greatest coffee producers in the 1700s, after the Dutch began to cultivate the coffee plant on its island colony. Java's best coffee today is grown on the far eastern end of the island, on five estates established by the Dutch government.

Jinotega
A coffee-producing region of Nicaragua.

Juan Valdez
A fictional farmer used in a highly successful "100 percent Colombian coffee" marketing campaign created by a New York-based advertising agency in 1960. Colombian coffee federation officials credit Valdez's popularity for traders' willingness to pay up to 11 cents more per pound for Colombian coffee than for beans from other countries.

Kaffee-Kantate
Johann Sebastian Bach composed Kaffee-Kantate, his ode to coffee, in 1732.

Le Procope
Paris's first cafe – Le Procope – opened in Paris in 1686. It is still in business today.

Leaf rust
The coffee leaf rust, Hemileia vastatrix, is a fungal disease of coffee.

Liberica
Coffea liberica or Liberica coffee, a minor crop of coffee from africa, is similar to Robusta. Although this hardy and low-altitude species accounts for less than 1% of total world coffee production, it's a recognized commercial variety.

Malawi
Malawi, Africa's smallest coffee-producing country, has had an international reputation since the 1890s. After the Shire Highlands Railway was built, it sold most of its remaining lands to coffee plantation owners, who then relied upon the railroad to ship their beans. Most Malawi coffee sells to the United Kingdom; relatively little makes it to Canada and the U.S.

MAM
See Colombia

Manizales
The name of a well-known coffee grown in Colombia's central cordillera, that takes its name after the city of Manizales, in which it is marketed.

Matagalpa
A coffee-producing region of Nicaragua.

MC
See Medium Cup

Medellin
The name of a well-known coffee grown in Colombia's central cordillera, that takes its name after the city of Medellin, in which it is marketed.

Medium Cup
A term of the coffee trade that represents a grade below Good Cup.

Milds
Another name for arabicas.

Mocha
Coffee was originally shipped through the Red Sea port of Mocha, and continued to be for centuries. After the Suez Canal changed shipping lanes, Mocha fell into disuse, and no coffee has been shipped from this ancient port in the last 100 years. "Mocha," is now a common name for coffee from Yemen, it is the name of a drink made up of coffee and hot chocolate, and it remains an old-fashioned nickname for coffee.

Monsoon coffee
Monsooned coffees, named after India's monsoon winds, are prepared at the curing factories situated on the country's west coast. Monsooning is carried out from June to September, when the southwest monsoon is very intense on the west coast. The cherry coffee is evenly spread in thick layers in open warehouses and raked frequently, then packed loose in gunny bags and stacked in piles, leaving space between rows to allow the monsoon air to circulate freely around the bags. Monsooning allows the cherry coffee to absorb moisture from the humid monsoon wind, causing the beans to swell to nearly double their original size, and the colour of the beans to change to a pale yellow/straw or almost white colour.

The coffee bags are regularly emptied and repacked, or poured from one bag to another, to prevent mould and ensure uniform monsooning. The monsooning process takes 12 to 16 weeks.

At the end of monsooning, the coffee is polished and graded, then fumigated to prevent weevil attack. Any coffee could be monsooned, but India's Coffee Board, a regulator, restricts monsooning to whole crop Grade "A" arabica cherry and robusta cherry coffees. Monsooning first happened by accident when a shipload of coffee bound for Europe swelled due to the moisture in the air and acquired a unique, mellow taste. This was the birth of monsooned coffee.

MTGB
A term of the coffee trade that stands for "medium to good beans."

Myths of coffee
According to legend, a goat herder named Kaidi discovered coffee after noticing that his goats became frisky after chewing on the berries of a wild bush. After chewing some of the berries himself, he, too, became enlivened. A monk that came across these events initially scolded him, accusing him of "partaking of the devil's fruit." Soon, however, monks enlisted the fruit to keep them alert for their prayers and divine inspiration.

Religion also appears in another legend, involving Omar and his followers, who were banished to the desert to die of starvation. In their desperation, the group boiled and ate the fruit from an unknown plant, and drank the resulting brew. Their survival was taken as a religious sign by townsfolk of Mocha, the nearest town. To honor this event, Mocha became the name of the plant and its beverage.

NASAA
See National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia

National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia
A member of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements

Natural Method
See Dry Processing

Nicaragua
Nicaragua is a coffee-producing country in Central America. Its coffees are produced by the wet-process in the Jinotega and Matagalpa regions and are light to medium bodied and fairly acidic. Nicaragua's coffee trees produce large beans.

OCIA
OCIA is a farmer-based, "grass-roots" organization that strongly encourages the formation of local farmers associations or chapters. At present, it has 58 chapters totaling some 4,500 grower members throughout the world. It requires member processors, traders and manufacturers, to abide by the same rules and code of ethics and have to be part of the control process in order to assure of products grown and handled under these standards.

OCIA's program of organic certification aims for a demonstrably independent and neutral third party system to insure that certified members adhere to a unified set of stringent production and handling standards, backed up by an audit trail through which a product can be traced from the final consumer, back to the farmer and field. A system of peer evaluation in local groups supports certification inspectors in their work.

Organic coffee
Coffee produced without synthetic chemicals under a philosophy that considers the farm to be an ecosystem. Organic production emphasizes soil health, recycling, composting, and biological activity to protect the farm environment.

Organically-grown coffee is usually shade-grown: The trees of the canopy provide the organic coffee farm with its necessities, including leaf litter, a fertilizer, and a moist environment. The wildlife that lives under the canopy controls pests that would otherwise attack the coffee plant.

Organic Foods Production Act
The 1990 U.S. Department of Agriculture act standardizes the use of the label "organic," subsuming state standards.

Origins of coffee
The word "coffee" has its origins in an old Arabic word, "Qahwah,"or wine: The earliest coffee drink was a wine made from coffee cherries, honey, and water. After Islam's arrival in the sixth century, prohibitions on alcohol led to this wine's demise.

Coffee is indigenous to Ethiopia's Kaffa (coffee) region. In the sixth century, Arabs took it to Yemen and began cultivating it there. The original hot coffee drink took its name from the Arabian port of Al Mukkah (Mocha) on the Red Sea, for centuries the sole source for the world's coffee imports.

In the 1600's, smugglers broke the Arab's coffee growing monopoly by taking coffee seeds from Mocha to southern India. In the early 1700's Java became a famous coffee growing island after the Dutch began cultivating coffee there.

Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea, a coffee-growing island near Indonesia, began cultivating coffee in 1937 with seeds imported from Jamaica's Blue Mountain region. Papua New Guinea's coffee is grown in the valleys of the western highlands in the area around Mt. Hagen, where rich soil and climate produce a mild and mellow coffee that many consider one of the world's best. The country's coffee is produced on small plantations within the rainforest.

PC
See Poor Cup

Peaberry
When the coffee fruit develops a single oval bean rather than the usual pair of flat-sided beans, the peaberry is created. Peaberries develop when only one of two ovaries in the flower become pollinated, producing one seed rather than two. Peaberry beans can either be allowed to remain mixed in with the normal beans or they can be separated during grading by slotted screens that allow only the peaberries to fall through. Tanzanian Peaberry.

Penny universities
After the first coffee house opened in London in the 17th century, coffeehouses became known as "penny universities" because, by paying one penny for a cup of coffee, a customer could learn more at the coffee house than in class. Among the coffee houses' inspirations: The London Stock Exchange. Lloyd's of London began as Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse.

Poor Cup
A term of the coffee trade that represents a low grade of coffee.

PPKGO
See Gayo Organic Coffee Farmers Association.

Premium coffee beans
An estimated 20% of the world's harvest is considered premium.

Processing methods
The mechanical mucilage wet method generally produces the brightest, driest, and cleanest tasting coffees. Those processed by the ferment-and-wash wet method will be less bright and dry, but often fruitier and more complex. Coffees processed by the semi-dry and the dry methods tend to be fruitiest, most complex, and heaviest in body because the fruit residue remains in contact longer during drying.

Regions
Coffee comes from three coffee-growing regions, each with its own distinctive qualitites. Indonesia and the Pacific produces coffees whose taste is smooth and full bodied, with low acidity and an often earthy flavor. In the Americas, coffee has high acidity with a clean and crisp taste. African and Arabian coffee tend to be bright and winey or floral, with a sparkling acidity, and a medium to full body.

Relationship Coffee
A type of Fair Trade coffee that is not certified by a third party. Relationship coffee refers to a desirable level of trust and understanding between the farmer and the buyer. Fair Trade proponents believe that Relationship coffee often has the same or higher standards as its certified equivalent but, because the certification process often takes years, coffee producers can be trading fairly without being officially certified.

Roasting
Roasting brings out coffee's unique aromas, tastes and colors. When the temperature rises in a roasting machine's rotating cylinder, the beans can lose 20% of their weight through evaporation. At the same time, the beans expand by 60% in volume from reactions that release the coffee's flavor and aromas. In roasting, the temperature must never exceed 230° C (446° F). When producing a particular blend, the temperature must not vary from batch to batch.

The longer the roast and the higher the final temperature, the stronger and more intensive the final flavor. Roasting time is usually from ten to twenty minutes.

Roasted coffee releases carbon dioxide, particularly during the first few hours after the roast. – the outgoing pressure of the carbon dioxide exceeds the air pressure around the beans and the oxygen in air – which causes coffee to go stale – cannot penetrate the bean. As soon as the rate of carbon dioxide release slows, coffee begins to go stale.

Specialty roasters either produce small batches and ship them right away, or package them immediately in air tight bags with one-way-valves (sometimes called belly-buttons) that allow the remaining carbon dioxide to escape without allowing oxygen to enter. As well, specialty coffee is sometimes placed in hoppers pumped full with nitrogen, an inert gas that keeps air out without affecting the roasted coffee beans. The coffee can then release most of its carbon dioxide over the course of eight hours or so prior to packaging.

Robusta
Robusta or Coffea canephora var. Robusta accounts for a growing share of world coffee production, some 10% to 15%. Robusta beans come from a high yield plant that is resistant to disease. Robusta trees grow taller, are more resistant to pests and disease, and produce more fruits than arabica, yielding two to three pounds of green coffee a year. It does best at lower elevations and has harsh flavors. It contains about two percent caffeine. It is grown in Asia, Africa and Brazil, but not very much in Central America

The caffeine content of robusta beans, at two percent, is about twice that of arabica. Considered inferior-tasting, robusta is often used for instant coffee and in supermarket-grade blends. Generic supermarket coffee is typically a blend of good arabica, medium quality arabica, and robusta. The instant coffee segment is comprised primarily of processed robusta and lower quality arabica.

Sanka
German coffee importer Ludwig Roselius had scientists remove caffeine from beans without destroying their flavor. He marketed the innovation under the brand name "Sanka." Sanka was introduced to North America in 1923.

Santos
A port in Brazil from which coffee is shipped. Brazilian Santos does not refer to a specific coffee growing area but signifies a bulk commodity coffee.

Semi-washed method
In this hybrid processing method, the coffee cherries are washed and sorted as in the washed method, but instead of being placed in fermentation tanks they are set out to dry.

Shade coffee
See shade-grown coffee

Shade gradient
See shade spectrum

Shade spectrum
A five-category continuum "management spectrum for coffee," running through a spectrum of shade and cover. This basic shade gradient, devised by Mexican coffee researchers and technicians, has become a familiar centerpiece in discussions on quantifying shade:
1. Rustic is the least intensified and least expensive practice, typically used by small family-owned farms that produce a modest crop of coffee. Under this increasingly rare practice, coffee shrubs are planted in the existing forest with minimum alteration to the native vegetation.
2. Traditional polyculture is more managed than rustic coffee. It involves the deliberate integration of beneficial plants such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, and medicinal plants, leading to greater species diversity than commercial polyculture. The crop diversification helps farmers when coffee prices are depressed; in many traditional indigenous systems there is no distinction between wild and domesticated plants and some plants are weeded, tolerated, or encouraged depending on household needs and the season.
3. Commercial polyculture resembles traditional polyculture, except that some shade is removed to allow more coffee shrubs. To obtain higher yields, fertilizers, pesticides and other chemical inputs are usually needed.
4. Reduced or specialized shade uses a single, pruned canopy species to provide shade, typically from the genera Inga, Erythrina, Gliricidia, or Grevillea. Under this system, farmers plant coffee shrubs more densely, giving farms a manicured look. Since the overstory consists of one or two species, there is less species diversity.
5. Full-sun or unshaded monoculture does away with the canopy completely. The unshaded, intensively-managed fields, with chemical inputs, become highly productive. These farms' sole objective is producing coffee for market.

Shade-grown coffee
Coffee grown under a natural canopy. Coffee grown in the shade ripens slowly, and it is often drawn from vintage cultivars, making it prized for its complex flavors. Flavor aside, bird conservationists value the species of shade trees used and the structure of the tree cover, which provide many resident and migratory bird species with food and cover. Ornithologists have consistently documented the importance of shade-coffee habitat in the increasingly deforested landscape of the Neotropics.

Several organizations are working to establish a standard, enforceable label, among them the Rainforest Alliance's ECO-O.K. program and the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center's "bird-friendly" criteria.

SHB
See Strictly Hard Bean.

SHG
See Strictly High Grown.

Silverskin
The coffee bean's thin covering.

Skal International
An inspection and certification organization, authorized in several EU member states, that certifies organic products, processes and inputs.

Soft Bean
Coffee grown at under 4,000 ft, a relatively low altitude. Such beans mature quickly, produce a lighter, more porous, and generally less desirable bean.

Sour
A basic taste, noticed at the tip of the tongue, characterized by solutions of tartaric acid, citric acid, or malic acid. A sour coffee's unpleasant acidity should not be confused with the natural acidity of some coffees, a prized characteristic.

Specialty roasters
Specialty roasters tend to roast in small batches and emphasize instinct more than instrumentation in their craft: They use smell, sound, and sight to determine when their roast is done. Unlike mass-market roasters, that typically stop roasting after about seven to nine minutes, when the beans "pop" to produce a light roast, specialty roasters generally roast to a variety of greater degrees, and use a variety of beans with different characteristics, to achieve distinctive coffees.

Spicy
A smell reminiscent of cinnamon or clove. It is created by volatile hydrocarbons in coffee's aftertaste.

Stale
Coffee that has been overexposed to oxygen, giving it a flat, cardboard taste.

Storing green coffee
Some green coffee beans are stored for years; certain beans are believed to improve with age. Green beans need to be stored in the dark, and away from heat and moisture. As a rule of thumb, green beans keep well for two to three years.

Strictly Hard Bean
Coffee grown above 4,500 feet. The higher the altitude, the slower the beans mature, making them harder and denser than other beans and more desirable.

Strictly High Grown

Strictly Soft
A term of the coffee trade that represents a top grade of coffee (and the opposite of a coffee that tastes "harsh").

Stripping
A method of harvesting, either by hand or machine, that strips branches of all their fruit.

Sumatra
A renowned coffee-producing island. Most Sumatran coffee is produced using the dry process. Sumatra Fair Trade Organic

Sun coffee
Coffee that is not shade-grown, often involving new coffee hybrids that have been developed for sun tolerance and compact growth. The coffee is typically grown in neat rows of coffee beneath direct sun or scant shade, yielding more coffee per hectare but requiring more chemical inputs—fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides—and land denuded of trees.

Sustainable Coffee
A term that implies concern for the environment, for laborers' working conditions and trading practices, and for land tenure systems that do not impoverish farmers. A melding of ecology, economics, and politics, sustainability implies an equitable allocation and consumption of resources.

Sweet
Coffee that is smooth and free from harsh flavors or other defects.

Tanzania
Tanzania, a coffee-producing country in Africa, is the world's main peaberry producing country. Tanzania beans.

Technified coffee
Technification, analogous to the "Green Revolution" that was touted to revolutionize Third World agriculture, involves chemical inputs applied to high-yield disease-resistant varieties of coffee.

On technified farms, sparsely planted trees are kept to add some nitrogen to the soil and to hold it in place on steep hillsides. These technified farms are sometimes called "shade coffee farms," although the few shade trees remaining are pruned back each year to little more than stumps. The percentage of technified coffee acreage is estimated at 10 per cent in El Salvador and Haiti, 40 percent in Costa Rica, and almost 70 percent in Columbia.

The spread of coffee leaf rust to the New World in the 1970's spurred technification. Foreign aid from United States Agency for International Development (U.S.-AID) provided funding for technification projects. Technification is widely viewed as having failed to fulfill its promise, instead contributing to ecological degradation, loss of important habitat, and economic strain.

Tipica
Spanish for typica

Tone
Coffee's appearance or color.

Transfair
TransFair USA's mission is "to build a more equitable and sustainable model of international trade that benefits producers, consumers, industry and the earth. We achieve our mission by certifying and promoting Fair Trade products."

Trees
There are three commercial species of coffee trees: Robusta, Arabica and Liberica. Coffee trees, evergreens that grow to heights above 15 feet, are normally pruned to 8 feet to facilitate harvesting. The trees produce highly aromatic, short-lived flowers producing a scent between jasmine and orange. They yield a commercial harvest in four to five years.

Turpeny
A smell that resembles turpentine or camphor. It can be created by volatile hydrocarbon compounds and nitrites found in coffee's aftertaste.

Typica
A variety of arabica

Vacuum Filter Method
A method of brewing coffee in which the brewing water is drawn down through the ground coffee by means of a vacuum.

Varietals
Coffees that have distinctive characteristics are strong enough to identify. Each growing region has its particular characteristics, and within each growing region, particular beans possess certain characteristics.

Washed coffee
A product of the long and complex wet process that is mostly used for coffee cherries that are uniform in size, generally because they have been handpicked. The fruit is put into pulping machines to free the seeds in their parchment from the hulls. The beans are then fermented or "washed" in large water tanks for several days to remove decomposed pulp formed during this phase. Washing also triggers chemical reactions in many Arabica varieties that bring out the coffee's aroma and flavor. Washed beans are then sun dried, separated from their parchment through centrifugal force, polished and sorted to weed out defective beans.

Wet method
See wet process.

Wet Process
One of two ancient methods of processing coffee beans (the other is the dry process). Most of the finest coffees use the wet method, which involves first removing the bean from the coffee fruit using pulping machines that free the beans in their parchment from the hulls. The beans are then fermented or "washed" in large water tanks for several days to remove decomposed pulp formed during this phase. The wet process, used in regions with a plentiful supply of fresh water, allows for more quality control. Drying washed beans, which have shorn their pulp, takes much less time than drying the entire coffee fruit, lessening opportunities for the fruit to attract mold, ferment, or even rot.

After the wet (or dry) process, a mill removes any remaining parchment and the silverskin, the bean's thin covering.

The wet processed coffees will generally have a higher acidity and cleaner flavors than those processed through the dry method.

Winey
A flavor reminiscent of fine red wine.

Yemen
Yemen's coffee beans, generally grown organically in remote areas, are pungent and winey, yet sparkling and smooth. See also Mocha.

Yirgacheffe
A coffee growing region of Ethiopia renowned for a distinctive, flowery coffee that grows in high elevations under a soft canopy of native shade trees. The Yirgacheffe was the only coffee allowed in the palaces of Ethiopian kings.