Home Café Glossary: 33 Coffee Terms Explained
Coffee people love their jargon, and most of it isn’t necessary to make a great cup at home. But some of it is genuinely useful shorthand — once you know what “dial in” or “bloom” means, it saves you from re-explaining the concept every time. This is the plain-English version: no gatekeeping, no assumed prior knowledge, just what each term actually means and, where it’s useful, a link to the full BYOB guide that covers it in depth. Bookmark it and come back whenever a term stops you mid-sentence.
A
AeroPress
A small, manual brewing device that uses a plunger to push hot water through coffee grounds and a paper filter under light hand pressure, producing a clean, concentrated cup in about a minute. It sits somewhere between pour-over and espresso in strength, and it’s popular for being cheap, portable, and nearly indestructible. See our How to Use an AeroPress at Home guide for the full standard and inverted brewing method.
B
Blend
See Single-Origin vs. Blend, below.
Body
In coffee-tasting terms, how heavy or thin a coffee feels in your mouth — closer to whole milk (fuller body) or closer to water (lighter body). Darker roasts and espresso tend to have more body than light-roast pour-over. See our How to Read a Coffee Flavor Wheel guide for how body fits alongside the other tasting notes.
Bloom
The first pour in pour-over (or the first few seconds of most fresh-ground brews): a small amount of hot water poured over the grounds that makes them puff up and release trapped CO2 before the real brewing pours begin. Skipping it — or brewing beans too old to bloom well — leads to uneven extraction. See our Pour-Over for Beginners guide for the full bloom-and-pour method.
Burr Grinder vs. Blade Grinder
A burr grinder crushes beans between two abrasive surfaces to a consistent, adjustable size. A blade grinder just chops beans with a spinning blade, producing an uneven mix of fine dust and large chunks. Burr grinders cost more, but even a basic $60-80 burr grinder will out-brew any blade grinder for espresso or pour-over, because grind consistency is what even extraction depends on. See our How to Dial In Espresso guide for why grind size matters this much.
C
Channeling
When water finds a weak spot or crack in the coffee bed (most often in an espresso puck) and rushes through it instead of passing evenly through the whole thing — over-extracting that spot while the rest stays under-extracted. It usually shows up as a fast, thin, sour shot with a pale or streaky-looking pour, and it’s the main reason WDT and even tamping technique matter.
Cold Brew vs. Iced Coffee
Cold brew is steeped with cold or room-temperature water for 12-24 hours, no heat involved at all. Iced coffee is regular hot-brewed coffee that’s cooled and poured over ice. They taste genuinely different — cold brew is smoother and less acidic, iced coffee is brighter and more acidic — and cold brew takes patience, not skill. See our How to Make Cold Brew at Home guide for the full method.
Crema
The tan-to-reddish-brown foam that sits on top of a properly pulled espresso shot, made of CO2 and oils emulsified out of the beans under pressure. Fresh beans produce more of it; stale beans produce little to none, which makes crema a quick, informal freshness check. See our How to Store Coffee Beans Properly guide for keeping beans fresh enough to crema well.
Cupping
The formal tasting method coffee professionals use to evaluate beans: coarsely ground coffee steeped in individual cups, then slurped loudly off a spoon to aerate it across the palate, and scored on aroma, acidity, body, and flavor. You don’t need to cup coffee to enjoy it — it’s here because you’ll see the term on specialty bags and in tasting notes. See our How to Read a Coffee Flavor Wheel guide for the plain-English, no-cupping-session version of the same vocabulary.
D
Degassing
The natural process of freshly roasted beans releasing CO2 built up during roasting — heaviest in the first 24-48 hours, then continuing at a slower rate for a couple of weeks. It’s why very fresh beans (used same-day) can brew unevenly or gush in espresso, and why most guides suggest resting beans a few days after roast before pulling shots. See our How to Store Coffee Beans Properly guide for how this affects storage.
Dial In
Adjusting your grind size, dose, and shot time until espresso from a specific bag of beans tastes balanced instead of sour or bitter — a quick recalibration you do for each new bag, not a one-time machine setting. See our full How to Dial In Espresso guide.
Dose / Dosing
The weight of ground coffee you put into the portafilter basket (for espresso) or brew basket (for other methods) before brewing, typically written in grams — as in “an 18g dose.” Dose is one of the three levers, with grind size and ratio, used to fine-tune a shot or a cup.
E
Espresso
A small, concentrated shot of coffee made by forcing hot water through finely-ground, tightly-packed coffee at roughly 9 bar of pressure for about 25-30 seconds. It’s a brewing method, not a bean or a roast level — any coffee can be labeled “espresso roast,” but what actually makes espresso is the pressure and the grind.
Extraction
The process of pulling flavor compounds (“solubles”) out of ground coffee into water. Too little extraction tastes sour, thin, and watery; too much tastes bitter, harsh, and ashy; the balanced middle is what every brewing method is chasing, whether that’s a 30-second espresso shot or a 4-minute pour-over.
G
Grind Size
How fine or coarse coffee is ground, which controls how much resistance water meets and how long it stays in contact with the grounds. Finer grinds mean more resistance and more extraction (used for espresso); coarser grinds mean less resistance and less extraction (used for cold brew and French press); pour-over and drip sit in the middle.
L
Lungo
An espresso shot pulled with more water than a standard shot — a longer yield, like 1:3 or higher instead of 1:2 — producing a larger, more diluted, often more bitter cup. It’s the opposite direction from a ristretto.
M
Microfoam
Steamed milk with extremely fine, tight bubbles that make it glossy and pourable rather than stiff and foamy — the texture that lets you pour latte art and that makes milk taste sweet instead of airy. It’s a technique outcome, not a type of milk. See our How to Steam & Froth Milk guide for how to actually get there.
Moka Pot
A stovetop brewing device that uses steam pressure (roughly 1-1.5 bar, far less than real espresso’s 9 bar) to push water up through coffee grounds, producing a strong, concentrated cup that isn’t technically espresso but fills a similar role for a fraction of the price. See our full Moka Pot guide.
P
Portafilter
The handle-and-basket assembly you fill with ground coffee and lock into an espresso machine’s group head to brew a shot. “Naked” or “bottomless” portafilters have no spout, so you can watch the stream and spot channeling as it happens.
Pour-Over
A manual brewing method where hot water is poured over ground coffee sitting in a filter — usually in a cone or flat-bottom dripper — letting gravity pull it through into a cup or carafe below. It’s prized for a clean, bright cup and for needing very little equipment. See our Pour-Over for Beginners guide.
Pull a Shot
Café slang for brewing a single serving of espresso. “Pulling” refers to old lever machines where you physically pulled a handle to force water through the grounds — modern machines use a pump or steam pressure instead, but the phrase stuck around.
Puck
The compressed disc of used coffee grounds left in the portafilter basket after pulling an espresso shot. A clean, intact puck that pops out in one piece is a rough sign of an even extraction; a puck that’s soupy or falls apart often points to channeling or too coarse a grind.
R
Ratio (Brew Ratio)
The weight of water (or liquid espresso) compared to the weight of dry coffee grounds — usually written like 1:2 for espresso or 1:16 for pour-over. It’s the most reliable way to describe a recipe, since “a scoop of coffee” and “a mug of water” vary wildly from one kitchen to the next.
Ristretto
A “restricted” espresso shot pulled with less water than standard — a shorter yield, like 1:1 instead of 1:2 — producing a smaller, more concentrated, often sweeter shot. It’s the opposite direction from a lungo.
Roast Levels (Light, Medium, Dark)
How long and how hot beans are roasted, which changes flavor more than almost any other single factor. Light roasts are more acidic and floral/fruity, with the bean’s origin character most visible; medium roasts balance acidity and body; dark roasts are heavier-bodied, less acidic, and taste more of the roast itself (chocolate, smoke) than the bean’s origin. None of these are objectively “better” — it’s genuinely just preference. See our How to Read a Coffee Flavor Wheel guide to put a real word to whichever direction you land on.
S
Single-Origin vs. Blend
Single-origin coffee comes from one specific farm, region, or country, and its flavor reflects that place. A blend combines beans from multiple origins to hit a consistent, balanced flavor batch after batch. Neither is more “legitimate” — cafés build house espresso blends on purpose because consistency matters for espresso, while single-origins shine in pour-over, where you’re tasting one bean’s character on its own.
Specialty Coffee Grade
A quality classification (roughly, coffee scoring 80+ out of 100 on a standardized cupping scale used by the industry) for beans that are free of defects and grown/processed with above-average care, as opposed to generic commodity-grade coffee. It’s a real, meaningful distinction, but “specialty” on a bag isn’t a legally policed term the way “organic” is — a roast date and a real stated origin are better freshness signals than the word alone.
Steam Wand
The metal wand on an espresso machine that injects steam into a pitcher of milk to heat and texture it into microfoam. Entry-level and budget machines often have weaker steam wands than pricier ones, which is one reason mason-jar shaking or a handheld frother are legitimate alternatives, not just consolation prizes. See our How to Steam & Froth Milk guide, which covers all three methods.
T
TDS (Total Dissolved Solids)
A measurement, in parts per million, of how many dissolved minerals and solids are in water — or, applied to a finished brew, how much coffee is actually dissolved in your cup. Water TDS affects extraction and scale buildup in your machine; brewed-coffee TDS is what specialty shops mean when they talk about a cup’s “strength” in hard numbers instead of just taste. See our Best Water for Espresso and Coffee guide for why this matters more than people think.
Tamping
Pressing ground coffee down firmly and evenly in the portafilter basket before locking it into an espresso machine, so water meets flat, consistent resistance across the whole puck instead of punching through a weak spot. Even, level tamping matters more than tamping hard. See our How to Dial In Espresso guide.
V
V60 / Chemex-Style Drippers
Generic terms (borrowed from popular dripper shapes, not used here as brand names) for the two main pour-over dripper styles: a cone-shaped dripper with a single large hole at the bottom, versus a flat-bottom or hourglass-shaped dripper that brews a bit slower and more evenly. Either works well for a beginner — the difference is more about cup character than one being “correct.” See our Pour-Over for Beginners guide for a full breakdown by budget tier.
W
WDT (Weiss Distribution Technique)
Stirring loose espresso grounds with a thin tool — a needle, a pin, or a small bundle of fine wires — before tamping, to break up clumps and distribute the grounds evenly across the basket. It’s one of the cheapest upgrades in home espresso, a $5-10 tool or even a sewing needle, and it meaningfully reduces channeling.
Y
Yield
The weight of liquid that comes out of an espresso shot (or, more loosely, how much brewed coffee a method produces), usually measured in grams on a scale. “18g in, 36g out” describes an 18g dose with a 36g yield — a 1:2 ratio.
Didn’t find the term you were looking for? Most of these tie back to a full how-to guide — start with our How to Dial In Espresso guide if you’re troubleshooting a shot, or our Pour-Over for Beginners guide if espresso isn’t your thing.