Does Coffee Have Terroir and How Should It Be Assessed?

Abstract

The terroir of coffee is defined as the unique sensory experience derived from a single origin roasted coffee that embodies its source. Environmental conditions such as temperature, altitude, shade cover, rainfall, and agronomy are considered the major parameters that define coffee terroir. However, many other parameters such as post-harvest processing, roasting, grinding, and brewing can combine to influence the perception of terroir. In this review, we discuss the contribution of these parameters and their influence on coffee terroir. Assessment of terroir requires defined sensory descriptors, as provided by the World Coffee Research Lexicon, and standardized roast level, grind size, and brew method. The choice of the post-harvest processing method is often environmentally dependent, suggesting that an inclusion into the coffee terroir definition is warranted. Coffee terroir is often not intentionally created but results from the contributions of the Coffea species and variety planted, environmental and agricultural parameters, and both the harvest and post-harvest method used. The unique combination of these parameters gives the consumer a unique cup of coffee, reminiscent of the place the coffee was produced.

Keywords: environment; maturation; particle size; post-harvest; roasting; sensory experience.

Figure 1

A comparison of the steps required before the terroir of wine or coffee is assessed, with wine terroir defined [7] and coffee terroir proposed.

Figure 2

The top eleven sensory attributes used for assessing overall sensory quality across the reviewed literature. Percentage reported is the number of occurrences of an attribute out of the total number of reported attributes [1,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40].

Figure 3

Common literature brew methods presented in a simplified format for easy method comparison.

Figure 4

Illustration of ground coffee particle size. A light-medium roasted coffee was ground and separated into size bands using metal sieves.

Figure 5

Illustration of coffee bean roast color demonstrating the color of the beans and grounds at different roast levels.

Figure 6

The maturation of arabica coffee cherries from green (unripe) to red (ripe) to overripe (dark red).

Figure 7

Associations between sensory attributes, molecules, and different coffee roasting/post-harvesting methods [10,141].