Why can't you taste the coffee? How to improve your sensory judgment of coffee taste

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Guide reading

I believe that friends who have just come into contact with individual coffee have the same doubt: when drinking the same cup of coffee, the barista can tell that this cup of coffee has the sour and sweet smell of strawberries and the aroma of roses. But I didn't drink anything except sour and bitter! Is your tongue too stupid? Or is there a flavor radar on the barista's tongue?! What should we do if we want to have the same "radar tongue" of barista?

What is the flavor of coffee?

For the identification of coffee flavor, we are divided into two parts: smell and taste. The production of coffee flavor and taste is closely related to the degree of roasting. Two days ago, when introducing the old coffee flavor wheel, the street said that the order of the flavor of this version is from light to heavy, which also shows the changing process of roasting degree from shallow to deep coffee taste. Sweet and sour substances with light molecular weight and high water solubility are the substances that can be felt and tasted most quickly, while bitter substances with heavy molecular weight and low water solubility are often shown later.

What about salty taste? Salty likes to play with sweet and sour sisters. When sour and sweet sisters are together, they can hide the salty taste, so that we can't feel its existence. If we feel the salty taste when we drink coffee, it is that the freshness of coffee beans turns on a red light, warning that the sour and sweet sisters have been "destroyed" by the evil of oxidation.

The division of work of the tongue!

For feeling the four tastes, the tongue itself is also its own division of labor. The tip of the tongue feels sweet, the ends of the tongue near the tip of the tongue feel salty, the ends of the tongue near the base of the tongue feel sour, and the root of the tongue feels bitter. This also explains why we first feel the sweet and sour substances and then the bitter substances when we drink coffee.

Division of work and cooperation in the nasal cavity!

The sense of smell of the nasal cavity can be divided into two kinds of judgment of taste, one is the sense of smell before the nose, the other is the sense of smell behind the nose. The sense of smell before the nose refers to inhaling directly into the nasal cavity to feel the smell of the outside world. For example, after coffee beans are ground into coffee powder, we smell aromatic gasification substances, and the sense of smell behind the nose is often mistaken for being tasted by the tongue, but it is actually released by the aroma gasification molecules catalyzed by saliva and hidden in the coffee oil after tasting coffee. the olfactory experience brought about by entering the nasopharyngeal canal through the mouth and entering the nasal cavity.

How to judge the flavor of coffee?

The sense of taste and smell are responsible for collection and communication, and the brain is responsible for association. When the coffee enters the mouth, the tongue detects the taste of the coffee, and then gives it to the nasal cavity to identify the aroma of the coffee. Finally, the feeling is conveyed to the brain to associate, to find out which food / flower smell is closest to the taste and fragrance felt at this moment, so as to form the flavor of coffee.

I have a different flavor of the same kind of coffee. Is that normal?

For the description of the flavor of coffee, there are 4000 flavors on record. Everyone's judgment and memory of taste are different, which is a very subjective functional feeling. The pleasure of tasting coffee is that after you feel a flavor, share and discuss with the people around you.

If you are hampered by the flavor on the coffee bean information card, you will only allow yourself to get into the misunderstanding, because there is no unique standard for coffee flavor itself. The flavor description on the information card is only as a "leader", selecting the flavor words that baristas describe the most about coffee beans during the cup test, so that everyone can choose the coffee beans that suit their own taste.

What if I can't describe the flavor of the coffee in more detail?

For people who are new to coffee, it is normal not to drink coffee flavor. In this case, what can we do to improve our judgment of coffee flavor?

① establishes its own flavor memory.

When tasting the same food, we can not only feel the sour, sweet, bitter and salty food, but also further feel the aroma brought by the food. For example, to taste an apple now, you can smell the aroma before peeling, smell the aroma after peeling, feel the sour and sweet of the apple after a bite, and then feel the smell of the apple by closing your mouth and exhaling through the nose. compare the difference with the direct smell of the apple, so as to establish a better flavor memory of the apple.

② looks for a variety of food / flowers with similar odors for flavor comparison.

For example, what's the difference between strawberries and raspberries?

For example, what is the difference between the aroma of hazelnut and almond?

For example, what is the difference between the aroma of jasmine and ginger?

Compare the taste / smell of the same kind of food / flowers to better distinguish the nuances between tastes.

③ tries coffee beans that are lightly roasted.

Lightly roasted coffee beans are a good sensory "training base" if you want to try more coffee flavor. Compared with deep-roasted coffee beans, the flavor of shallow-roasted coffee beans will be more rich, which provides more material for everyone to identify the taste of coffee.

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