When we drink coffee there’s a fun little dance happening between three sensory elements – smell, taste and feel. We experience each and make a sort of snap judgement about the general profile of a coffee, but understanding better how these elements work can improve our sensory skills and help us to become improved tasters and brewers of coffee. In this post we’ll demystify coffee sensory at a fairly basic level. Stay tuned as we dive into more advanced topics later on this blog.

What is coffee anyway?

Before we go any further, let’s come to an understanding of what “coffee” is. When we brew coffee we refer to the process that’s happening as extraction, since you’re literally extracting chemical compounds from roasted coffee into your brew. During extraction, there isn’t a single moment in which we’re extracting “coffee.” Rather, the beverage we know and love is the simultaneous sensation of roughly 400 chemical compounds, none of which can be identified as the predominant flavor of coffee.

The Flavor of Coffee

With hundreds of compounds, each with their unique flavor, evaluating the finished brew can be difficult. As professional baristas, we practice sensory skills to be able to brew great coffee and relay accurate information to the folks who wish to drink it. It’s through this evaluation that we arrive at tasting notes, like those you’ll find on our menu or on bags of beans on our retail shelf.

When your barista says, for instance, that a coffee has a flavor profile of dark chocolate, stone fruit and jasmine flower, what they’re really giving is their best assessment of the multitude of flavor notes in the coffee. Because we all perceive flavors differently – due to experience level, personal bias, genetics, etc. – it’s understandable that we may perceive a coffee differently than it has been described to us.

In addition to a coffee’s flavor, we frequently note the feel of a coffee as a way of evaluation. For instance, is it light in body, heavy, oily, creamy, etc? This tactile function is the physical sense of coffee and commonly plays a role in our enjoyment of the beverage.

Olfaction (Smell)

Our ability to smell is called olfaction, and the smell – or aroma – of coffee is a key component of its flavor profile. Aroma in coffee takes the form of gaseous chemical components that are released into the air in large quantities when coffee is freshly ground, and then as vapor when it is brewed. We’re equipped with olfactory receptors in our nasal membrane that allow us to perceive the aroma of coffee. This happens when we inhale (i.e., smell) the brew, and again when we swallow and coffee vapor rises upward from inside our mouth to reach our olfactory receptors.

Gustation (Taste)

The process known as gustation is how we taste coffee through our tongue’s taste buds. When we taste, we simultaneously detect four basic tastes: sweet, salt, sour and bitter. These tastes will all be present in coffee, each to a greater or lesser extent, and they also have the ability to interact with one another through taste modulation. For instance, a taste that features a salt component can reduce the perception of bitterness and increase the perception of sweetness. That’s why tomatoes seem sweeter when we add a touch of salt to them.

Mouthfeel

The inside of our mouth, including our tongue, gums and hard and soft palate, contain nerve endings that allow us to detect viscosity and oiliness in coffee, or what we refer to as mouthfeel, or body. Simply put, viscosity is the perception of solid material that is present in the finished brew. This can be microscopic bean particles that have made its way through the filter. So it’s easy to see how the brewing method you select could impact body (e.g., metal, mesh and loose filters allow more particles through than tight, thick paper filters).

All coffee also contains some amount of lipids, including fat, oil and wax. This is the perceived oiliness of coffee. The lipids are extracted when we brew coffee, but unlike many other chemical components, they do not dissolve into the brew. They can often be seen as an oily residue that sits on the surface of a cup of coffee.

Putting it into practice

So how do we put this all together? The truth is, understanding the individual components of coffee sensory is not enough to significantly improve your ability to taste and describe coffee. You must also put this lesson into practice – over, and over, and over again. When you have a cup of coffee in front of you, try to be mindful and present in the experience. What are you smelling as the cup reaches your mouth, and then what do you smell when the coffee is inside your mouth? What are you tasting? And what is the physical sensation of the coffee in your mouth? If you find it helpful, keep a log of your evaluations and track your progress.

If you have questions, send me an e-mail at jonathan@mammothespresso.com and let’s chat about coffee sensory, palate development and whatever else you’d like to dive into. We’ve got several other practical lessons planned for the blog, but if you have specific topics you’d like us to cover, send us a line. Cheers!

Photo credit Michael Tucker