A Glossary of Coffee Terms Every Bangkok Cafe-Goer Should Know

This isn’t an A-Z dictionary to scroll through top to bottom — it’s organized by where you’ll actually run into these words: on a menu board, on a bag of beans, in a conversation with a barista, or on a street corner from a vendor with a cloth filter. Jump to the section that matches what you’re looking at right now, or use the A-Z Index near the bottom if you already know the specific term you want.

Every definition here is written for a general reader, not a coffee professional — where the technical version matters, we say so and link to a fuller explainer.

Terms You’ll See on a Menu

Espresso-Based Drinks

Espresso — A concentrated shot of coffee made by forcing hot water through finely ground, tightly packed coffee under pressure. It’s the base for most of the drinks below, not a type of bean or roast.

Ristretto — A “short” or “restricted” espresso shot: the same amount of ground coffee as a regular espresso, but pulled with less water, so it’s more concentrated and smaller in volume.

Americano — Espresso topped up with hot water. Roughly approximates the strength of drip coffee, but keeps espresso’s flavor character rather than filter coffee’s.

Macchiato — Espresso “marked” with a small spoonful of steamed milk and a bit of foam — mostly coffee, with just a touch of milk. (Don’t confuse this with the very different, caramel-and-milk-heavy “macchiato” drinks some large chains sell — this glossary uses the traditional Italian meaning.)

Cortado — A shot of espresso “cut” with a roughly equal volume of steamed milk, with little to no foam — less milk than a flat white, more than a macchiato.

Flat White — A double shot of espresso with steamed milk and a thin layer of microfoam, generally served smaller than a latte, with a stronger coffee-to-milk ratio.

Cappuccino — Espresso with steamed milk and a deeper layer of milk foam, traditionally in roughly equal thirds of espresso, milk, and foam.

Latte — Espresso with a larger proportion of steamed milk and a thin layer of foam — the mildest and most milk-forward of the standard espresso drinks, and usually the largest in volume.

Filter and Black Coffee

Filter Coffee / Pour-Over — Coffee brewed by pouring hot water over grounds held in a paper or cloth filter, letting gravity pull the brewed coffee through. Typically cleaner-tasting and lighter-bodied than espresso-based drinks. See “Terms About Brewing Method” below for specific devices.

Cold Brew — Coffee steeped in room-temperature or cold water for an extended period (typically many hours), then filtered. This is a brewing method, not just “iced coffee” — see the distinction called out under Brewing Method below.

Iced Coffee — Hot-brewed coffee cooled and served over ice. Different from cold brew, which is never hot-brewed at all; the two often taste noticeably different because heat extracts coffee differently than cold water does.

Terms About Where the Coffee Came From

Single-Origin — Coffee sourced from one identified place — a country, a region, or a specific farm — rather than blended from multiple sources. The point is traceability: the roaster can tell you specifically where it came from, which is why single-origin coffee is common in specialty coffee (see What Is Specialty Coffee? for the full picture of how that term is defined).

Blend — Coffee combining beans from more than one origin, farm, or lot, usually to hit a consistent flavor profile or price point year-round. Blending isn’t a lesser practice than single-origin sourcing — it’s a different goal (consistency vs. showcasing one specific place).

Estate / Single-Estate — Coffee from one specific farm, mill, or cooperative — a more precisely traceable subset of single-origin.

Microlot — A small, separately harvested and processed batch from one specific section of a farm, often set aside because it scored unusually well or has a distinct character worth keeping separate from the rest of the harvest.

Direct Trade — A sourcing relationship where a roaster buys coffee directly from the farm or producer, rather than through multiple layers of intermediaries. There’s no single certifying body that defines “direct trade” the way there is for, say, Fairtrade certification — it’s a claim roasters make about their own supply chain, so it’s worth asking a roaster what it specifically means for them.

Terroir — A term borrowed from wine: how a place’s climate, soil, altitude, and growing conditions shape the flavor of what’s grown there. Applied to coffee, it’s the reason two farms a few kilometers apart can taste noticeably different.

Terms About How the Coffee Was Processed

Processing is what happens to a coffee cherry between harvest and the dried green bean that gets shipped to a roaster — specifically, how the fruit (the “cherry”) is separated from the seed (the “bean”) inside it. It has a bigger effect on flavor than most people expect.

Washed / Wet Process — The fruit is removed from the bean by machine, usually within about a day of harvest. What’s left is a sticky layer called mucilage, which is then removed either by a period of fermentation followed by rinsing, or by stripping it off mechanically — fermentation here doesn’t always mean soaking in water; it can also happen in open-air tanks. Washed coffees tend to taste cleaner and brighter, with more pronounced acidity, because less fruit sugar interacts with the bean during drying. See Understanding Coffee Processing: Washed, Natural, and Honey Explained for the fuller mechanics.

Natural / Dry Process — The whole cherry is dried in the sun with the fruit still on, then hulled afterward. Natural coffees tend to taste sweeter, heavier-bodied, and more fruit-forward, since the drying bean sits in contact with the fruit the whole time.

Honey Process — A middle ground: the skin is removed but some or all of the sticky fruit layer (called mucilage) is left on during drying. Named for the sticky texture of the beans during drying, not because honey is added. Honey-processed coffees generally sit between washed and natural in both sweetness and clarity.

Anaerobic Process — Cherries or pulped beans are fermented in a sealed, oxygen-free tank before drying, rather than in the open air or in flowing water. This is a newer, more experimental technique that can produce unusual, intense, sometimes polarizing flavors — you’ll mostly see it called out explicitly on a bag because it’s a selling point, not the default.

Wet-Hulled (Giling Basah) — A processing method associated with parts of Indonesia, especially Sumatra, where the parchment layer is hulled off while the bean is still much wetter than usual — often 35–50% moisture, compared to the roughly 10–12% moisture at which most coffees are hulled — before a final drying stage. Green coffee importer Cafe Imports describes the resulting cup as earthy, savory, and herbaceous, with a heavy body, dark chocolate notes, and low acidity. You may see this term on bags of Indonesian-origin beans at Bangkok roasters that source regionally.

For the fuller explanation of how these methods compare and why roasters choose one over another, see Understanding Coffee Processing: Washed, Natural, and Honey Explained — a resolved target, drafted but not yet published.

Terms About Roasting

Roasting is what turns green (raw) coffee into the brown beans you recognize — heat triggers chemical changes that develop flavor, and how far that process goes determines the roast level.

Light Roast — Roasted for the shortest time, typically stopped shortly after “first crack” (see below). Preserves more of the bean’s original character and tends to taste brighter and more acidic, with the origin’s specific flavor notes easier to pick out.

Medium Roast — Roasted further, generally stopping before or around “second crack.” Balances brightness with sweetness and body, and starts to develop caramelized, toasted notes from the roasting process itself rather than the bean’s origin.

Dark Roast — Roasted the longest, past second crack. Origin character fades and roast-driven flavors — bold, bittersweet, sometimes smoky — take over. Oils often rise to the bean’s surface, giving dark-roasted beans a visibly shiny look.

First Crack / Second Crack — Audible cracking sounds during roasting, caused by pressure building inside the bean as it heats. First crack (like popcorn popping) marks the beginning of “drinkable” coffee and roughly divides light from medium roasts; second crack (quieter, more rapid snapping) marks the shift into dark roast territory.

Roast Date — The date the beans were roasted, not the date they were packaged or sold. Coffee is a fresh agricultural product: flavor changes over time after roasting, so the roast date matters more to what you’ll actually taste than the sell-by date does. Reputable roasters print it clearly on the bag.

Terms About Brewing Method

These are about how a specific cup gets made, separate from the drink names above (which describe the result, not always the method).

Pour-Over — Hot water poured by hand over grounds in a filter, letting it drain through by gravity. Common devices include the Hario V60 (a cone-shaped dripper known for fast, even extraction) and the Chemex (an hourglass-shaped carafe-and-filter combo known for a very clean, sediment-free cup).

Immersion Brewing — Coffee grounds sit fully submerged in water for a set time before being separated out, rather than water passing through continuously. French press and cold brew are both immersion methods; pour-over is not.

French Press — An immersion method using a cylindrical pot with a mesh plunger: grounds steep directly in hot water, then the plunger separates them out. Produces a heavier-bodied cup than paper-filtered methods, since the metal mesh lets more fine particles and oils through.

AeroPress — A manual immersion-and-pressure device: coffee steeps briefly in a chamber, then a plunger pushes it through a paper filter under gentle pressure. Fast, portable, and capable of a wide range of results depending on technique.

Siphon (Syphon) — A vacuum-brewing device using two chambers: heated water is pushed up into an upper chamber holding the grounds, then as the heat source is removed, the brewed coffee is pulled back down through a filter by the vacuum created. Visually dramatic, and less common than pour-over or immersion methods generally.

Extraction — The general process of pulling flavor compounds out of ground coffee into water. “Under-extracted” coffee tastes sour or thin (not enough pulled out); “over-extracted” tastes bitter or harsh (too much pulled out, including compounds that taste unpleasant). Baristas adjust grind size, time, and temperature to hit the right extraction for a given method.

Terms About Quality and Grading

Cupping — The standardized way coffee professionals taste and evaluate coffee: multiple samples are brewed the same way side by side, then smelled and slurped from spoons so tasters can compare them systematically. It’s how green coffee gets scored before a roaster ever buys it.

Q Grader — A coffee taster certified by the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) to evaluate and score coffee using standardized methods, so that a score from one certified taster is meant to be comparable to a score from another, anywhere in the world.

Green Coffee — Unroasted coffee beans, as they arrive at a roastery. “Green” refers to their raw, pre-roast state and color, not a coffee variety.

Defect — A physical flaw in a green coffee bean — from broken beans to insect damage to beans that fermented incorrectly — that graders count and weigh against a coffee’s quality score. Specialty-grade coffee tolerates very few of the more serious defects; commercial-grade coffee tolerates more.

Specialty Grade / Specialty Coffee — Coffee recognized, through a formal evaluation process, for distinctive attributes that give it real extra value over ordinary commercial-grade coffee. This term has a specific, evolving industry definition rather than being a marketing label — see What Is Specialty Coffee? A Plain-English Explainer for the full explanation, including how the definition itself changed as recently as 2021–2024.

Flavor Wheel — A circular diagram used across the specialty coffee industry to standardize the language tasters use to describe flavor — grouping related descriptors (like “citrus,” “berry,” and “stone fruit” under a broader “fruity” category) so that a taster’s notes mean roughly the same thing to someone else reading them.

Thai Coffee Culture Terms

Bangkok’s coffee scene didn’t start with specialty coffee — a much older, still-thriving coffee culture exists alongside it, and the two aren’t in competition so much as parallel traditions.

Kafae Boran (กาแฟโบราณ) — Literally “ancient” or “old-style” coffee. Multiple independent coffee-industry sources describe it as a traditional Thai coffee style that developed during the World War II era, when coffee was scarce and expensive, so roasters stretched dark-roasted robusta with other roasted ingredients. Recipes vary by vendor rather than following one fixed formula — commonly cited additions include corn, rice, sesame, soybeans, and brown sugar, with some sources also mentioning salt, butter, or tamarind seed. It’s traditionally brewed through a cloth “sock” filter and served hot or over ice, typically with sweetened condensed or evaporated milk. You can still find it at traditional coffee stalls in Bangkok and elsewhere in Thailand, alongside the city’s newer specialty cafés.

Oliang (โอเลี้ยง) — Thai black iced coffee, typically made by brewing a dark-roasted robusta blend (often with grains such as corn or soybeans mixed in) through a cloth filter and serving it cold, without milk. The name comes from Teochew Chinese — “o” for black, “liang” for cold — reflecting the Thai-Chinese roots of much of Bangkok’s traditional coffee-vendor culture. Sources describe oliang and kafae boran as closely related styles that share ingredients and brewing method, but don’t agree on a single, precise historical or categorical relationship between the two terms — see the Common Questions section below for how this glossary handles that.

A–Z Index

Quick lookup if you already know the word you’re after. Jump links point to the definition above.

AeroPress · Americano · Anaerobic Process · Blend · Cappuccino · Cold Brew · Cortado · Cupping · Defect · Direct Trade · Espresso · Estate / Single-Estate · Extraction · First Crack / Second Crack · Flat White · Flavor Wheel · French Press · Giling Basah (see Wet-Hulled) · Green Coffee · Honey Process · Iced Coffee · Immersion Brewing · Kafae Boran · Latte · Macchiato · Microlot · Natural / Dry Process · Oliang · Pour-Over · Q Grader · Ristretto · Roast Date · Siphon (Syphon) · Single-Origin · Specialty Grade / Specialty Coffee · Terroir · Washed / Wet Process · Wet-

Common Questions

Is “specialty coffee” just a fancier word for expensive coffee?

No — it’s a specific, defined industry standard, not a price claim. See What Is Specialty Coffee? for the full explanation.

What’s the difference between kafae boran and oliang?

Each term describes a specific drink: kafae boran is generally served hot (or over ice) with milk, while oliang is specifically the cold, black, no-milk version. Both typically start from a similar dark-roasted robusta and grain mix. Beyond that, sources aren’t fully consistent about whether oliang is best understood as a variant within a broader “kafae boran” tradition or as its own parallel term — this glossary doesn’t assert a single historical or categorical relationship between them, since the available sources don’t clearly support one. If you’re ordering, the practical difference that matters is simple: kafae boran usually comes hot or with milk, oliang is cold and black.

Does a “washed” or “natural” label on a bag tell me if I’ll like the coffee?

Not on its own — it tells you about a general flavor tendency (washed leans clean and bright, natural leans sweet and fruity), not a guarantee. Roast level, brewing method, and the specific bean all matter just as much.

Key Terms to Explore Next

What Is Specialty Coffee? A Plain-English Explainer — the fuller story behind the “Specialty Grade” entry above.

Understanding Coffee Processing: Washed, Natural, and Honey Explained — expands on the Processing section above.

A Beginner’s Guide to Brewing Methods You’ll Find in Bangkok Cafes — expands on the Brewing Method section above.

The History of Coffee Culture in Thailand — the fuller story behind the Kafae Boran and Oliang entries above.