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.

Evaluation of roasting and storage conditions as a strategy to improve the sensory characteristics and shelf life of coffee

“…The Eduard Campos coffee showed oscillations when assessed: on days 30 and 90 the astringency decreased, and on days 60 and 120 it increased compared to the storage time previously estimated. This shows that origin, due to its terroir, not only provides intrinsic characteristics to coffee (Sabio and Spers, 2020; Williams et al, 2022) but also leads to different behaviors during storage. The samples degassed in Bogotá had a lower variation in time compared to the coffee samples roasted at sea level.…”

“…For the interaction, Eduard Campos' coffee showed a signal increase between days 0 and 30 followed by a decrease, whereas the Gourmet coffee reported a steady decrease in the sensors signal over time. This could be for the different agricultural factors (terroir) each origin went through, varying bean maturation rates and leading to different reactions during roasting and storage (Williams et al, 2022).…”

The impact of coffee origin information on sensory and hedonic judgment of fine Amazonian robusta coffee

“…Regarding flavor nuances, significant differences were found in nutty and cacao flavors, both between Groups 1 and 2, this time the first producing higher scores. It is important to consider that the flavor profile of robusta coffees is often composed by nutty and cacao notes, as a result of the coffee species, variety, and processing methods (Williams, Barkla, Rose, & Liu, 2022). In a study across 10 robusta coffee cultivars, Teixeira et al (2020) identified consistent differences between varieties, regardless of the environment, particularly on notes of chocolate/cacao, cereal, woody, herbal, almond, and caramel (Teixeira et al, 2020).…”

Untargeted metabolomic approach based on UHPL-ESI-HRMS to investigate metabolic profiles of different Coffea species and terroir

“…As shown by Vezzulli et al (2022), production practices and environmental conditions can in uence the plant's organoleptic properties. In the case of coffee, the terroir is the result of the unique combination of the Coffea species and variety planted, environmental and agricultural parameters, and the harvest and postharvest methods employed (Lucini et al, 2020;Williams et al, 2022). The OPLS-DA using positive ionization mode on LC-MS is presented in Fig.…”