As the title suggests, a customer who doesn't often drink coffee came to the front street store, and when he was about to taste his cup in his hand, he suddenly stopped and asked the front street a question in his heart: Boss, how should I taste this coffee? Then today, I will talk to you about "how to taste coffee".
First of all, preferences are subjectiveThere is no absolute standard for whether a cup of coffee is good or not, whether it is bitter or not, whether it will be very sour, and how sweet it is, first depends on everyone's personal dietary preferences. For example, when sharing a sample of pour-over coffee on the street, it is clear that it comes from the same pot of coffee, some people think it is full and sweet, some people think it is too sour, and some people are so bitter that their faces are embarrassed. At this time, the so-called "good coffee" is "my favorite coffee".
When judging the quality of coffee, be objectiveBecause everyone's dietary preferences are different, there are naturally different standards when it comes to drinking coffee. If you want to get together to discuss and communicate, you need a set of sensory standards that most people agree on (e.g., SCA, COE, CQI). These similar mainstream standards make the taste spectrum of coffee have a unified terminology, so that everyone can relatively objectively appreciate the good and bad of coffee.
As a novice who has just learned about specialty coffee, or a coffee lover who is learning, if you want to learn how to taste coffee, Qianjie believes that you can taste it from three aspects: volatile aroma, taste, and taste.
Volatile aromaAs the saying goes, "the nose smells fragrant, the tongue tastes the five flavors", in fact, the nose is the most important organ for tasting the taste of coffee. When we eat, our senses of taste and smell work at the same time, and the same is true for coffee. If there is no sense of smell, the aroma of the food will disappear, leaving only the monotonous sweet, sour, bitter and salty. When you have a cold, you always have no taste to eat, and one of the reasons is that the nasal mucosa is inflamed and swollen, and the odor molecules cannot freely enter and exit the nasal cavity.
Volatile aroma is mainly divided into two parts: dry fragrance and wet fragrance, among which the odor that can be directly perceived after grinding is called dry fragrance, and the odor released after contact with high-temperature hot water is called wet fragrance. For example, in the aroma of Kenyan Asaliya coffee, the dry aroma presents the aroma of berries and small tomatoes, and when exposed to hot water, it exudes the aroma of black plum and Sydney.
In addition to the direct smell of the nose, there are also some aromas that "slip into" the nasal cavity from the mouth and are perceived by us during the swallowing process. For example, the delicate floral aroma and cantaloupe fruit aroma after drinking Red Label Geixia on Front Street is not a sensory sensation brought by the taste buds (the tongue cannot distinguish the smell), but a smell captured by the smell behind the nose. When we smell a good aroma in coffee, we will add a good impression to it.
TasteOur taste buds can only perceive 5 taste substances: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and fresh, theoretically there is almost no umami in coffee, and saltiness is often masked by other flavors under normal circumstances. Therefore, when it comes to tasting coffee, we generally focus on the three taste manifestations of sour, sweet and bitter.
A cup of coffee that tastes slightly bitter, has a soft acidity, a good sweetness, and a moderate amount of strength, then it must be a good cup of coffee. When we add the taste to the smell perceived by the sense of smell, our brain immediately associates a specific food in the memory bank, which is called the flavor description. As coffee lovers, we can follow our preferences and find coffee that makes it more palatable for us.
PalateThis can be understood as the overall feeling brought to the mouth by the coffee liquid, also known as the body of coffee, which is actually the volume (texture) of coffee. For example, if we drink water and feel similar to water, then in the expression it will be said that "the feeling of water and the taste are thin". If you drink it and feel astringent, you will say "rough and astringent" in the expression. The coffee taste is usually described as rough, smooth, thin, mellow, and full, which is relatively easy to perceive.
The taste of coffee after swallowing is also a part of coffee tasting that needs to be paid attention to. Bitterness in the mouth or strong fermentation or acetic acid taste is an uncomfortable manifestation and points should be deducted. When you finish drinking coffee, you don't feel anything in your mouth. When the coffee is drunk and the mouth is sweet, or exudes a light and comfortable tea aroma, then the aftertaste of this cup of coffee is very good, and it is a complete experience.
Finally, if you really want to learn to drink and taste coffee, you need to accumulate effective flavor information in coffee on a daily basis, so as to expand your corresponding memory bank, and there is no shortcut. In other words, just drink plenty of coffee!
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