Why We Don't Do Tasting Notes

Blueberry. Jasmine. Brown sugar with a whisper of mandarin and a long finish of stone fruit and honeycomb.

Have you ever read that on a bag of coffee and thought "I literally just taste coffee"?

Good. You're not broken. The tasting notes are.

The Problem

Tasting notes are the specialty coffee industry's biggest own goal. They were invented to help people understand what they're drinking. Instead they made people feel stupid for not tasting things that aren't really there.

Here's what actually happens. A roaster cups a batch. They taste something. Maybe it does have a slight fruity note. Maybe the acidity does remind them of citrus if they think about it hard enough while comparing it to twelve other coffees in a silent room with nothing else going on.

Then they write "tropical fruit, citrus zest, caramel" on the bag and hand it to someone who's making a flat white with milk at 6:30am while their toddler screams in the background.

That person is never going to taste tropical fruit. They're going to taste coffee. And now they feel like they're doing something wrong.

What We Do Instead

We describe our coffee the way you'd describe it to a mate.

People Everyday: smooth, easy drinking, tastes great with milk. The one everyone likes. Your go-to.

No Sleep: stronger, bolder, gets you moving. For people who want their coffee to mean business.

Hyperdrive: full-on, intense, the kind of coffee that makes you sit up straight. Late nights. Big projects. Go time.

That's it. No flavour wheels. No botanical references. No making you feel like you need a diploma to choose a bag.

The Science of Why This Works

The dirty secret of tasting notes is that flavour perception is wildly subjective. What you taste depends on your genetics (some people have more taste receptors than others), your diet, what you ate last, the temperature of the coffee, the milk you used, and about forty other variables.

Studies have shown that when you tell someone a wine has "cherry notes," they're more likely to report tasting cherry. It's not that the cherry is there. It's that the suggestion plants the perception. The same thing happens with coffee. Tasting notes are partly real and mostly priming.

We'd rather you drink our coffee and decide for yourself what it tastes like. If you think People Everyday tastes like chocolate, great. If you think it tastes like coffee, also great. Both of you are right.

The Industry Backlash We Don't Care About

Some specialty roasters think we're dumbing things down. That by not writing elaborate tasting notes, we're disrespecting the craft. That the farmers who grew these beans deserve to have their terroir recognised.

Here's what we think. The farmers who grew these beans deserve to have their coffee bought, paid for fairly, and enjoyed by as many people as possible. If pretentious packaging is a barrier to someone trying specialty coffee, then the packaging is the problem, not the person.

We buy exceptional green beans. We roast them carefully. We deliver them consistently. We just don't write poetry about them.

Who Tasting Notes Are Actually For

Tasting notes serve a real purpose in one context: professional cupping. When roasters and importers are evaluating coffees side by side, tasting notes help create a shared language. They're a tool for comparison.

That's great. But it's an industry tool being forced onto consumers. It's like if car manufacturers put torque curves on the window sticker instead of "this car is quick and comfortable." Useful for engineers. Confusing for everyone else.

The Coffee Snob Problem

The coffee industry has a gatekeeping problem. It's the only food industry where customers regularly feel judged for their preferences.

You like sugar in your coffee? Great.
You drink instant sometimes? Fine.
You put milk in a single origin? Your call.
You can't taste the "jasmine" in the tasting notes? Nobody can. It's fine.

We got into coffee because we wanted to drink something better than what we found at the supermarket. Not because we wanted to join a club with a secret language. And we refuse to be the kind of roaster that makes people feel excluded.

Big brother energy. Simplify everything. Make people feel smart, not stupid. That's the whole philosophy.

What We Want You to Know

Your coffee should taste good to you. Not to a Q-grader. Not to a barista competition judge. Not to the person who wrote the tasting notes. To you.

If you can't tell the difference between a $15 bag and a $25 bag, that's okay. If you can, also okay. If you just want something reliable that tastes great every morning without having to think about it, that's exactly what we make.

People Everyday. Smooth. Reliable. Tastes like your coffee should taste. No surprises. No tasting notes. No judgement.

Just good coffee.

Curious? Try People Everyday. No flavour wheel required.

Keep reading: Starting a Cafe in Perth · The Real Cost of Bad Coffee

We roast for cafes across Perth. If you want a wholesale partner who thinks about your business the way we write about it, start a conversation.