Does coffee really have so many flavors? How to learn to distinguish the flavor of coffee? 85 flavors of coffee

Guide reading

Individual coffee is becoming more and more popular. when the barista gives you a cup of aromatic coffee with a flavor description card, you look at the small card while drinking the coffee, and you can't help thinking that this cup of coffee really has so many flavors. I can't taste the flavor written on this card!

Coffee has unimaginable flavors.

Scientists have isolated more than 850 compounds from a cup of black coffee, and the combinations of these compounds form different flavors. At present, there are 85 kinds of coffee flavor, which is the specific flavor described in the new flavor wheel of SCAA, and there will be more kinds of coffee flavor description in daily life.

How can you tell the flavor of coffee like a barista?

In fact, baristas can taste so much coffee flavor, not because baristas have a different taste acuity than ordinary people, but pay more attention to the taste of coffee than everyone else. When most people taste good drinks and delicious food, they usually only say, "it's delicious." Baristas will think about what exactly it tastes like and what substance it is made of.

As in the new coffee flavor wheel, there are three rings, and the inner ring is the total category, and it is also the flavor direction that most people can distinguish. For example, everyone can tell that the light roasted coffee has the flavor of fruit, and the deep roasted Manning coffee has the flavor of nutty cocoa.

Central is a second-level detail category, which is roughly subdivided into general categories, such as light-roasted Yegasheffy coffee with citrus fruit flavor and deep-roasted manning coffee with nutty flavor. It is much more difficult to distinguish the flavor of the central ring than that of the inner ring.

The outer ring is the largest variety of analogical flavor details, if you want to strictly describe, this cup of coffee has a similar flavor. The level at which we can talk about this is the description of the flavor of coffee that we all look forward to. For example, the light roasted coffee has the flavor of lemon and orange, and the deep-roasted manning coffee has the flavor of hazelnut and dark chocolate.

Note: the "barista" here refers to some people in the coffee industry.

Therefore, if you want to be able to distinguish the many flavors of coffee like a barista, it takes a lot of brainpower and time. I'd like to share my experience here on the front street.

① sets up flavor memory bank-- eat more and taste more

Most coffee flavors are found in herbs, ferments, fruits, flowers, sugars, nut cocoa, and spices, all of which are often encountered in daily life. the first step in learning to distinguish the flavor of coffee is to taste and remember the flavor of the analogy. Only after tasting kiwifruit can you know what kiwifruit tastes like. This is a process of perseverance and accumulation. (suddenly remembered the tearful years of memorizing English words)

As for how to taste it, it is definitely not to swallow it, just as when we taste coffee, it is the three-dimensional feeling of smell, taste and touch, and we can remember every kind of food you eat with this attitude.

② is good at association-- coffee flavor is complex.

You know, a cup of coffee can not be 100% that kind of flavor, such as described as citrus flavor, this does not represent a percentage of orange flavor, otherwise it will become a cup of orange juice. For example, when we taste a cup of Yega Chuefei, there is an aroma of flowers mixed with berries, while the taste is as sour as citrus, sweet as honey, and the aftertaste as after drinking green tea. These do not match in percentage, but at least they have a similar feeling of 70% and 80%.

So we often see that there are multiple flavor descriptions of a coffee bean. When we learn to distinguish one of the detailed flavors of a coffee, it shows that you have made great progress, but it is far from enough. Some great coffee cup testers can taste dozens of flavors in a cup of coffee. As a consumer, it is great to be able to taste three flavors in each type of coffee.

③ is more involved in communication.

In one case, you can tell the flavor of coffee, but it is difficult to express it in words. At this time, you need to communicate more with the outside world. Working behind closed doors is easy to be autistic, and you can absorb unexpected ideas from it through communication. Another advantage of communication is that it helps us to calibrate the identification of flavors. Because people have different preferences and come into contact with different things, they may not have the same understanding of a certain flavor. For example, dark chocolate in coffee flavor refers to dark chocolate with 100% purity, unlike the sweet chocolate that you usually come into contact with.