How Coffee is Like Music

By Natasha Bourlin Passport and Plume

Sometimes, when taking that first sip of freshly ground, freshly brewed Wood-Fire Roasted Coffee, we can almost hear music. It’s like an exquisite choir, a catchy beat, a perfectly orchestrated symphony in your cup.

Both music and coffee are readily available and can be quite uplifting. An incredible cup of coffee can also set the mood for our day, much like music does.

We often describe coffee’s flavor profiles with words such as tones and notes. And, much like musicians, a dedicated coffee roaster’s soul is poured into his craft. Roaster Tim Curry does this daily, quietly evoking his own form of music from the beans.

So, we’re going to play with this a bit today. Let’s walk through how coffee can parallel music…

Bluesy Beans

Some bean varieties can resonate like soulful blues. This form of music influenced many other genres over the decades. Its depth stirs the soul, and sounds emanating from blues musicians are simple, straightforward, and full-bodied.

Think of BB King strumming his guitar Lucille, each note played with intense passion, evoking feelings from deep inside listeners.

The same can be said of coffees from South and Central America, Indonesia, and the South Pacific. For instance, great Guatemalan coffee has rich, sweet, creamy notes. Flavors in the widely sought-after Panama Geisha can be intense, strong, and soul-stirring. Coffees grown in these regions have influenced others for centuries.

Symphony in a Cup

A superb coffee is like a classical symphony in your cup when properly brewed. A finely tuned, flavorful orchestra working together to create a palatable masterpiece.

A good coffee roaster acts as the composer. When roasting, they bring out the bean’s best qualities, tune them together and create a magnificent, unified melody.

Classical music began as an audible expression of life, a method of capturing Earth’s tune and expressing complicated human emotions. Beethoven claimed much of his inspiration came to him on his daily outdoor walks.

In a symphony, no single instrument stands out over any other, in general. They all work together in harmony. Brahms, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, and many others created orchestral arrangements that are intensely moving, often inspirational.

Jazzy Coffee

Jazz and coffee are closely knit. In fact, during the beatnik generation, notables like Jack Kerouac would sit in coffee shops, sipping on their steaming brews while listening to Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk.

A lively form of music, jazz can inspire you to dance. Known for its horns, percussion, bright tones, and high notes, jazz is busy, with lots of layers within it. The multi-faceted strata of jazz instrumentation and rhythms can prove thought-provoking. They all play off of each other, each instrument complementing the next in a dynamic way.

Delicious coffee can also get your toes tapping. Try varieties from northeast Africa, like Kenya or Uganda. Meanwhile, Rwandan coffees can evoke the ivory-tickling sounds of Gershwin, with their brightness, crisp citrus, gentle caramel, and refined sweetness.
Coffee, as well, is a beautiful expression of the land. In a perfectly roasted coffee, all of the flavor profiles create an arrangement your taste buds will be utterly entranced by. Take the classic Ethiopia Yirgacheffe, for example. Its earthy flavor profiles blend together seamlessly. Think orchestra versus guitar solo. Same with Burundi beans.

Next time you’re about to enjoy your daily coffee ritual, match your music to your beans, and see how the experience is elevated. From the moment the brew touches your lips and the tunes hit your ears, coffee and music can be a truly rousing, delicious combination.