Coffee can taste like caramel? (2024)

Yes and no. Coffee can have a good amount of caramel-like aromas that cause it to taste like coffee with a hint of caramel who's sweetness is masked by coffee's natural bitterness; but you will not mistake you coffee for liquid caramel. Roasting coffee causes the sugars in the coffee to first caramelize (turn to caramel) then carbonize (turn to ash) the same way as would putting a blowtorch to granulated sugar. The more carbony the coffee is, the more of the natural coffee sugars and aromas are burned off in lieu of the carbony bite. Different people prefer different ratios of the caramel-coffee taste to the carbony taste. In lighter roasts there are also enzymatic (herby, flowery, fruity) aromas. The enzymatic aromas then give way to the sugar browning (caramelization) aromas, which then fade into the carbonization aromas the darker the coffee is roasted.