What do berry notes mean in coffee flavor wheels?
Berry notes in coffee do not point to one fruit but to a group of small, juicy fruits. The SCA flavor wheel released in 2016 lists berries as a separate category, covering strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, and blackberry. The Chinese character for berry is a direct translation of the English word, which is why the term can confuse tasters.
Bacca and berries are not the same concept, even though both describe fleshy fruit. In coffee classification and grading, precision matters because a taster writing berry on a cupping form may mean something narrower than a general fruit note. Mulberry and cranberry also sit in the berry group, so the category is wider than the four common examples suggest.
When tasting pour-over coffee, we often hear descriptions like "berry notes." Compared to vague flavor terms such as tropical fruit, berries seem easier to associate with specific fruits. But what exactly do berries encompass? Are bacca and berries the same concept? In the new coffee flavor wheel released by the SCA in 2016, berries were listed as a separate category—what is the classification logic behind this? This article will help you clarify the definition of berries, the specific fruits they include, and the difference between berries and bacca, so you can use this term more accurately in coffee flavor descriptions.
Compared to the broad concept of tropical fruit, the term berries is clearly easier to understand. Similarly, berries are not the name of a specific fruit, but a broad category used to collectively refer to those small, juicy fruits. Unlike tropical fruit, in the new coffee flavor wheel released by the SCA in 2016, a separate category was specifically created for berries.
Under this berry category, the following are specifically included: strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, and blackberry. That's right—the Chinese character "莓" is translated from the English word "Berry." (In addition, mulberry and cranberry are actually also included in this category.)
The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.
