Why does pour-over coffee show tea-like notes and astringency?

Coffee can carry tea-like notes because it shares aromatic compounds with tea leaves. In the latest coffee flavor wheel, black tea appears under the floral category, and tasters also describe green tea, oolong, and white tea in coffee. The article analyzes the formation of tea-like notes, how coffee astringency differs from tea astringency, and which varieties and methods bring them out.

Variety, origin, processing, roast level, and brewing technique all shape whether a coffee reads as tea-like. Coffee cultivation choices, from the tree and terroir to post-harvest handling, set the aromatic base before roasting and pouring. A recommended bean list, including options such as Yirgacheffe, gives buyers a starting point when they want a cup with stronger tea character.

Many coffee lovers, when selecting coffee beans, besides common flavors like floral notes, fruity acidity, and nutty chocolate, also have a particular preference for a relatively niche characteristic—tea-like notes. When customers stand in front of the Front Street bean list, hesitating with a request like "I want a coffee with a stronger tea-like taste," we can't help but ask: tea is tea, coffee is coffee, so why can we taste the charm of tea in coffee? In fact, coffee does contain the same aromatic components as tea leaves. This article will approach from the perspective of flavor science, analyzing the formation principles of tea-like notes in coffee, the similarities and differences between coffee astringency and tea astringency, and explaining which varieties, origins, processing methods, roast levels, and brewing techniques can make coffee exhibit tea-like notes. Finally, it will include Front Street's recommended tea-like bean list for everyone's reference when purchasing.

Whenever friends are hesitating in front of the Front Street bean list, Front Street always recommends corresponding beans by asking about the customer's preferences, directly breaking the "dilemma" of choice difficulty. Then Front Street discovered that, besides popular preferences like floral notes, fruity acidity, and nutty chocolate, quite a few friends also favor the relatively niche characteristic of "tea charm": "I want a coffee with a stronger tea-like taste." These friends say so.

This might seem strange to many friends: tea is tea, coffee is coffee, how can coffee taste like tea?

But in fact, we can indeed taste the charm of tea in coffee. For example, in the latest version of the coffee flavor wheel, there is a "black tea" flavor, though it is categorized under the floral section.

Although the flavor wheel only includes black tea, in reality, the types of tea charm we can taste in coffee are far more than that. If you often read Front Street's articles, you will easily find that in some coffee aftertaste flavor descriptions, Front Street uses: green tea, oolong tea, white tea, and other tea types. So the question arises: why does coffee have tea charm?

Why does coffee have tea charm?

It's simple, because coffee also contains the same aromatic components as tea leaves. In the article "Is Coffee Flavor Metaphysics," Front Street detailed that the various flavors we taste in coffee mainly come from the combination of volatile compounds and taste.

After coffee enters the mouth, our taste buds first judge the intensity of the taste, and then the volatile aromatic substances slip into the nasal cavity during swallowing and are captured by the sense of smell. Immediately after, the brain combines the taste from our taste buds with the aroma captured by the sense of smell, and then searches the memory bank for a similar food, thus forming a flavor.

The same principle applies to why we can taste tea charm in coffee, because coffee also contains some compounds identical to tea aroma, so we can naturally associate the charm of tea. However, compared to tea charm, we more often use "tea-like notes" to describe it. Because in many cases, we need to combine mouthfeel/tactile sensation to make the "tea" flavor in coffee more three-dimensional.

"Salivation and sweet aftertaste" is a sensation we often experience when drinking tea. Simply put, when drinking some teas, we can feel a slight astringency on the tongue, followed by a sweet aftertaste.

The reason for this phenomenon is that one of the main components providing tea color and aroma in tea water—tea polyphenols—is at work. The most abundant polyphenol, tea tannins, not only enhances the concentration of tea charm but also makes the tea's mouthfeel rougher, creating the so-called astringency, stimulating salivary glands to secrete saliva, thereby generating a sweet aftertaste. The more tea tannins in the tea, the stronger and more lasting the salivation and sweet aftertaste we experience when drinking it.

In addition, the experience of salivation and sweet aftertaste can also be formed by organic acids.

Organic acids stimulate the salivary glands to secrete, thereby producing the feeling of "salivation and sweet aftertaste." Just like the sensation we experience when eating fruits such as bayberry and green plums.

Coffee itself is very rich in organic acids, so we often experience "salivation and sweet aftertaste" when drinking coffee. Combined with the tea aroma provided by other compounds, this forms "tea-like notes." It has both the taste of tea and the mouthfeel experience of tea.

But note that because the astringency in coffee mainly comes from chlorogenic acid, its astringency is still somewhat different from tea astringency. For example, some coffee astringency carries a slight bitterness, which is closely related to its sugar content. Then, just like other flavor expressions, not all coffees have tea-like notes.

What kind of coffee has tea-like notes?

Whether a cup of coffee has tea-like notes is closely related to the coffee bean variety, coffee cultivation, processing, roasting, and brewing. The first three determine whether the coffee can have tea-like notes and their type, while the latter two determine the intensity of the tea-like notes in the coffee.

Just as the Geisha (T2722) variety has more floral notes due to more terpenes in its genes, some coffee beans also have tea charm from the initial stage because their genes contain more compounds identical to tea. For example, Geisha (T2722)......

Coffee cultivation goes without saying; the growing environment of coffee can determine the accumulation and richness of substances. Coffee beans from some origins are famous for their excellent tea-like notes, such as Sidamo and Yirgacheffe in Ethiopia......

In the post-processing stage, different processing methods give coffee different types of tea-like notes. For example, washed processing is cleaner, making the coffee's tea-like notes偏向于清新纯净的类型，如绿茶（不一定），而日晒处理会让咖啡的发酵程度更重，它会让咖啡的茶感偏向于味道浓郁的类型，如果蜜香型的红茶（不一定）......

Then there is coffee roasting; the degree of roast determines the coffee's aroma expression. Generally, most coffees with tea-like notes are roasted at medium or below, i.e., medium, medium-light, and light roast coffees. Because they are roasted lighter, without much caramelization, there is not much burnt bitterness in the coffee to mask the coffee's own aroma, so the tea-like notes are more prominent.

We often hear descriptions like "This coffee doesn't taste like coffee, but more like a cup of tea." The reason is that the coffee is not roasted dark, so you can't taste the traditional "coffee flavor" (bitterness) from it, plus the rich coffee flavors and tea-like notes, making it easier to associate with drinking a cup of fruit-flower tea.

Finally, brewing! Because the astringency in coffee is mainly reflected in the aftertaste, sweet aftertaste, and other末端部分 of coffee tasting, this means we need to ensure a more complete extraction of the coffee. When coffee is under-extracted, or the extraction rate is not high enough, the aftertaste and sweet aftertaste performance will be lacking, and the tea-like notes will be less obvious.

Therefore, when we want to taste tea-like notes in a cup of coffee, besides buying a coffee bean with tea-like notes, we also need to ensure the coffee gets sufficient extraction~ As for recommendations for tea-like beans, you can refer to the following: Panama Butterfly, Boquete Geisha, Hacienda La Esperanza Geisha, Peru Geisha, Yirgacheffe Gutingting, Sidamo Huakui, Alo, Elto......

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.