How does barista COVID-19 lose his sense of smell and taste after being infected? How to taste the coffee

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The temporary failure of smell and taste is one of the symptoms of some people infected with COVID-19, which can be said to be very sad for small friends who love to eat. And for some partners who need sensory evaluation, it is even more difficult, such as baristas.

Many baristas who have just recovered begin to look at the coffee machine in a daze on their first day at work. Because you can only drink the sour and bitter coffee, you can't drink the flavor of other coffee at all! So the most discussed in the barista communication group is how to restore their senses.

First of all, we need enough rest!

After the occurrence of smell and taste failure, the first thing we need to do is to calm down the state of mind, do not need to be too anxious. According to the sharing of many friends who have the same situation, this is only temporary, and most of them will restore their basic sense of taste and smell in a week to half a month or so. In the meantime, what we need to do is to have a full rest and replenish our nutrition.

How do we distinguish the flavor of coffee?

We often say "flavor" = sense of smell + sense of taste + sense of touch = dry fragrance, wet fragrance + sweet, sour, bitter and salty taste.

In identifying flavor, taste buds / taste is only an "auxiliary". Our taste buds can only feel five taste substances-sweet and sour, bitter and salty, while there is no "fresh" taste in coffee, and the salty taste is completely obscured by sweet and sour bitterness under normal circumstances.

What really recognizes flavor is the sense of smell. Can we still smell the food in our mouths? ) Yes! The throat and nasal cavity communicate with each other. After the coffee is extracted, some of the flavor molecules will be wrapped in oil, and it is not clear for us to smell it directly.

When the scented oil enters the mouth, the taste buds are the first to judge the taste of the coffee, and then the oil melts on the tongue, releasing the aroma. These aromas "walk" to the nasal cavity with the process of swallowing, which is called postnasal smell, and what we can directly judge the smell is the prenasal smell.

When our taste buds feel the taste, coupled with the smell, our brains will associate with some specific objects, which is the formation of coffee flavor.

How to help restore the sense of taste?

You can help restore the sense of taste by making a simple version of "Devil Water" (taste water). Add the sour, sweet, bitter and salty seasoning to pure water / mountain spring water to dilute it.

In general, devil water in sensory courses has special materials and proportions, but if it is a taste failure, the initial concentration can also be higher, and then gradually dilute the minimum amount, so that the taste buds feel different concentrations of taste, and record it.

After you can feel five kinds of taste alone in different concentrations, you can mix 2-3 different concentrations and different amounts of taste water through a third party, and then determine which major flavor mixed which secondary taste.

"sour" can use edible citric acid "sweet" can use white granulated sugar

"bitter" can use edible bitter essence. "salty" can use edible salt.

"fresh" can use edible monosodium glutamate (sodium glutamate)

How to help olfactory recovery?

-Taste irritating

Qualified friends can help recover by smelling incense bottles. At present, the price of smell bottles is not cheap on the market, and after all, after artificial processing, there may be a gap between the taste and the actual aroma, so friends who do not smell incense bottles can draw materials in life.

In many olfactory recovery studies and personal experiences of friends, smelling objects with a strong smell can help restore the sense of smell. For example, citrus fruits, fragrant flowers, various spices, such as oranges, lemons, lilies, eucalyptus, roasted garlic, cloves and so on. Smell these substances for 15 seconds at a time, twice a day, until the basic sense of smell is restored.

How to improve the recognition of coffee flavor?

Coffee flavor itself is a very general definition, for example: some people think that a cup of coffee is sour lemon, some people think it is grapefruit and so on. The pleasure of tasting coffee is that after you feel a flavor, share and discuss with the people around you.

Different people have different degrees of memory and recognition of smell, which is why some people can think of a particular item after drinking a sip of coffee, while others can't. If you want to improve the recognition of coffee flavor, you can establish flavor memory and judge the flavor of different foods from different angles at the same time.

For example, when eating apples, we can first smell the apple peel, and then only eat the apple peel alone to see what taste the apple peel can bring to the taste, what aroma we can feel after swallowing the nose, and then smell the apple meat. Taste the taste and the aroma after swallowing. By tasting a food in this way, a more profound and three-dimensional memory of food flavor can be formed.

In addition to establishing flavor memory, you can also drink a large number of drinks, either vertically or horizontally. For example, in different producing areas of a country, different manors in the same producing area, different varieties of the same manor or different treatment methods, different people make the same coffee bean, etc., the way of comparison can more quickly realize the difference between the taste of coffee.

The time and situation of smell and taste recovery vary from person to person. If you don't get better for a long time, you should see an otolaryngologist to rule out other reasons.

Photo Source: Internet