Coffees with brown sugar tasting notes have a rich, syrupy sweetness. This sweetness is specially developed throughout the growing, processing and roasting of the beans. Read more
A brown sugar sweetness is mainly developed through roasting. A medium roast will heat the beans enough to caramelise the sugars, giving that sweet, rich and syrupy taste. Secondarily the soil in which the coffee plant has grown will affect the sweetness, with potassium and pH levels the most important to developing sweetness. A semiwashed/honey processing method can also be utilised to accentuate brown sugar sweetness, as the flesh of the cherry is removed from the coffee bean, but the thin mucilage layer of sugars is left on while the coffee dries which ferments the sugars further. These are just general ways that a sweetness can be developed in coffee and each variety and origin will have special techniques for each lot.
Try our Colombian Popaya Coffee Beans, and see if you can identify this specific and delicious sweetness.