Simple Guide To Know About Flavour Pairings With Coffee
Spotlight on the range of Arabica beans
At most you’d think coffee can only be paired with flour based food, to be precise, with bread. I thought so too. But as we walk our way towards coffee heaven we begin to think “there should be more, more flavour pairings”, eating only bread with coffee is tiring, no matter how much you love bread.
To some people, dare I say, to many people: coffee isn’t restricted to their morning routines any longer. And drinking coffee alone isn’t recommended because of health concerns especially due to its acidic content.
Now what we need is a meal to drink it with. And bread might be the first choice that comes to mind, but is that all we are confined to? Bread?
Common Flavours From Different Coffee Growing Regions
The ease of using regions as a guide to put a name on the range of flavours of coffee beans of the region, as a matter of fact makes classification easier.
Surely at the root of it all, there are three main growing regions that produce coffees with these general flavours:
- Central/South America: Sweet, Nutty, Cocoa and Roasted
- Africa: Fruity, Floral and Sweet
- Pacific/Asia: Cocoa, Spices and Roasted
Arabica: Its Perks, Its Quirks, Tips and Flavour Pairings
It’s easier to know what food you can pair food with, when you know your coffee’s flavour profile to create balanced flavour pairings all the time. Arabica coffee varies from a variety of factors; the altitude it grows at, its growing conditions and processing techniques, regardless of the unique conditions the beans meet with, common flavours can still be identified, differentiating it from other coffee varieties.
High-quality Arabica beans are great for espresso and filter methods. If you’re a fan of adding milk in coffee, cappuccino, and lattes are other possible variants that work wonders with Arabica beans.
Arabica has an earthy, somewhat woody, and a bitterness that reminds you of dark chocolate, with an aftertaste of peanuts.
In my opinion there are two important basics of tasting to becoming an adequate coffee/food pairing maestro!
- Taste mindfully. Tasting slowly allows you to gain a general impression on the acidity, sweetness, saltiness, and bitterness present in your cup of coffee. The amazing thing about this is finding the balance between the characteristics of your coffee beans.
Tasting starts with smelling, the aroma is the initial stimulus, tasting is another level of the experience, but that experience comes with a price to pay, an understanding of a complex dimension to coffee you wouldn’t consider existed; the flavour wheel, exposing you to it’s rich and diverse ranges from all over the world.
- Pair your flavours by complements or by creating contrast. The good thing about this is there are no right or wrong answers when it comes to pairing food with coffee. What matters is finding what works for you, like for example, how adding milk reduces the acidity of coffee and in turn heightens the chocolatey aspect of coffee creating rich flavour pairings at any time of the day.
SCAA Flavour Wheel
For beginners I highly recommend the use of the interactive SCAA Coffee Taster’s flavour wheel as a guide that has broken down parent flavour blocks to specific flavours as you move from the innermost circle outwards.
A flavour wheel isn’t enough, so here are the secrets of the flavour wheel, explaining how to use the wheel in easy steps, every step of the way.
The SCAA’s wheel exists to aid professional coffee tasters identify aromas and flavours in coffee, but they can also help us coffee lovers like you and me alike think about what foods might go well with a particular coffee.
Flavour Pairings with Coffee
A rule of thumb is there isn’t any right way to pair food and coffee. The purpose of this article is to help identify flavours in coffee that might go well with coffee.
The expectation is you taste both coffee and food separately. Why? So you’ll know how they will interact with one another before fully committing. And as mentioned above, consider foods that complement each other and those that taste differently. Contrasting flavours can put focus on some certain aspects of coffee.
Fruits And Coffee
In most cases coffees that have fruity notes are paired with similar flavoured fruits, that’s complementing the coffee, and likewise you can go the other side of the spectrum to pair your “fruity” coffee with something unique. The fruits can be paired fresh, or processed and made into pies, or muffins.
Desserts That Go Well With Coffee
There isn’t any hit-and-miss with coffee when it comes with desserts, because most desserts enrich most coffees even if the flavours are polar opposites. Besides, there’s an infinite number of combinations you could only try.
Coffee and Chocolate
It would be an offence to not add this category in this article. Coffee/Chocolate pairing is undisputedly the most classic coffee pairing. The easiest way to go about it is to have your cup of coffee with a chocolate bar (dark, white and milk chocolate). Brownies, chocolate cake, chocolate ice cream all have the same effect…bliss!
Coffee With The “Usual”; Baked Goods
Doughnuts, muffins, scones, croissants, cinnamon buns. An endless list of tried and tested complements for an everyday meal.
The Fun Part; Savoury Flavour Pairings
Pairing with sugary foods is almost everyone’s go-to food with coffee. With savoury food on one hand, you might have to tread carefully. When done right, on the other hand, can do wonders.
Here’s a list of savoury combinations to try:
Eggs, cheese, red meat, white meat and pizza.
Finally, the distance you wish to take your coffee experience solely rests on your shoulders, experiment as far and as wide as you can want. You’ll find delightful combinations, and combinations that are not so delightful, but know this, coffee and food are inseparable.
Photo by Ben Kolde on Unsplash
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