Our principles
We pay for everything.
Every coffee, meal and pastry is purchased at full price. We do not accept complimentary products, discounts or sponsored visits, as we believe they can influence, or appear to influence, a review.
If complimentary items are offered after we have politely declined, this will be disclosed alongside the review.
Consistency over creativity.
Coffee descriptions should help people understand what they’re drinking, not confuse them.
Wherever possible, flavor notes are drawn from the SCA Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel and recognized sensory terminology. The Flavor Wheel exists precisely to give tasters a shared vocabulary, one that has been developed, tested, and agreed upon by professionals in the industry rather than invented in the moment. Using it means that when we describe a coffee as having blueberry or dark chocolate characteristics, we are referring to something specific and recognizable, not reaching for the most poetic phrase available.
We deliberately avoid highly subjective or exaggerated descriptors that most people could not reasonably identify in the cup. A description that requires you to have eaten a specific variety of Ugandan passion fruit at peak ripeness in order to follow along is not a useful description, it is performance. Our job is clarity, not creativity.
An interactive version of the SCA coffee taster’s flavor wheel can be found here.
Data before opinions.
Where a quality can be measured, we measure it rather than describe around it. Sensory attributes are assessed using a defined five-point scale (Low, Low-Medium, Medium, Medium-High, High) applied consistently across sweetness, body, acidity, and astringency. This allows reviews to be compared meaningfully across cafés and over time, rather than existing as isolated impressions.
Serving details are recorded as standardised attributes: vessel type, whether a spoon is provided, whether water is served alongside. These may seem minor, but they reflect a café’s approach to the experience as a whole.
Taste will always involve an element of personal perception. Where that is the case, we say so explicitly. Where it is not, we do not treat it as though it were.
Transparency over perfection.
No review process is without limitations. A single visit captures one moment in a café’s life — staff change, recipes evolve, and an exceptional day can follow an ordinary one. We do not claim to be definitive. We claim to be honest about what we observed and when we observed it.
If we make a factual error, we will correct it openly and note that a correction has been made, rather than quietly updating or removing information. If circumstances at a reviewed café change significantly, we will revisit where possible or flag that the review reflects a specific point in time.
Coffee Compass is built on trust. Trust is earned through transparency, and transparency means showing your working, not just your conclusions.