Professional skills in Coffee Operation | the correct way to taste coffee

After years of accumulation and precipitation, the coffee industry has finally formed a set of coffee tasting standards and systems similar to red wine tasting.

But in real life, how many people really know how to taste coffee?

As far as I know, nowadays many coffee roasters and growers are keen to participate in coffee tasting related training. But can they really taste as sensitive as wine tasters and taste the real taste of coffee? How on earth should we taste coffee?

Scientifically speaking, many of the "flavors" of coffee we usually think of are actually the aroma, aroma and smell of coffee, and the organs that perceive these flavors are located in the back of our nasal cavity, which we call "posterior nasal smell". When it enters the nasal cavity, the aroma of coffee will permeate your throat all the time, so the taste of coffee is completely different from ordinary smell, and the sense of smell and posterior nose smell will stimulate different parts of the brain. Unfortunately, people know very little about the sense of smell of the posterior nose, and little is known about the part of the brain associated with the sense of smell. Few people know that the nose is the most important organ for tasting coffee.

Now let's explain how the sense of smell of the back nose works. first of all, when you chew food, the damage to the structure of the food and the heat generated by friction will release the very volatile aromatic substances in the food. the gas made up of these aromatic substances will go down the mouth to the throat and then into your nasal cavity, and the sensory cells at the back of the nasal cavity will catch these smells for the first time. These sensing cells are too small to capture aromatic molecules completely, so when these cells come into contact with aromatic gases, the entire posterior nasal sensing system is activated, and the posterior nasal sensing system can detect most of the aromatic molecules. According to research, there are more than 400 independent perceptrons in the human posterior nasal perception system, each of which can capture specific aromatic molecules, which is the real reason why we can distinguish thousands of different flavors.

After receiving this information, the brain begins to classify it. The more flavors you taste, the stronger your brain's ability to classify. I'm sure each aroma reminds you of a special life experience in the past, such as the smell of your grandmother cooking in the kitchen when you were a child. or the smell of the air when you walk down the street after getting drunk in a bar, etc., these memories are the key to exercising your brain's ability to classify.

Another major misunderstanding of human beings when tasting food is that the tongue cannot actually distinguish the smell, and only when the aroma of the food enters the nasal cavity can you fully perceive the taste of the food.

But the tongue is not useless. It can sense the most basic taste of food, that is, sweet, salty, sour, bitter and fresh. In addition to the tongue, the taste sensors around your mouth can also capture these tastes.

When you are tasting coffee, you must also master the skills to distinguish between taste and aroma. Without taste, coffee is just a scented perfume; without a sense of smell, coffee is just a thick soup with a bitter taste. When tasting coffee, your sense of taste needs to capture the sweetness and bitterness, and your sense of smell needs to capture the special smell according to the type of coffee. Only by combining taste and smell can you really taste the quality of coffee and tell which flavors you like and which ones you don't like.

In addition, another important point of tasting coffee is how to distinguish the mellow feeling of coffee.

Mellow feeling is the subjective judgment of the mouth on the texture of the food, while your judgment is based on the overall perception of the food stirring, twisting, chewing and the mouth, that is, the taste. Taste is very important for tasting work, and even after swallowing, the residual feeling in your mouth can still be an important basis for judging the mellowness of food.

Mellow feeling will not only affect your overall coffee experience, but also affect the integrity of the release of aromatic substances in coffee. Most cup testers or consumers can't tell which tastes are good and which are bad, but at least you know what you like and what you don't like. In my opinion, the judgment of the mellow taste of coffee varies from person to person.

In my personal experience, I suggest that you exercise your brain's ability to classify aromas and flavors before tasting coffee. You need to taste different kinds of coffee and delicacies to strengthen your taste memory so that your coffee experience can continue to be complete.

Oh, by the way, one more thing, some people say that different parts of the tongue perceive taste differently. Such a statement does not exist at all.

Remember, time waits for no man, before we get old, let's explore the magical perceptual world of coffee!

Author: Justin Metcalfe (Justin Metcalf), a well-known coffee industry consultant

Source: country of coffee