How to Taste Single-Origin Coffee? Everything You Need to Know About Single-Origin Coffee

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Tasting Coffee

The method of tasting single-origin coffee is actually quite similar to wine tasting. You need to fully engage your sense of smell, taste, and oral tactile sensations to appreciate a cup of coffee from every angle. However, this doesn't mean that tasting a single-origin coffee is an extremely difficult task. Here are six steps for your reference:

Smelling the Coffee's Dry Aroma

Step 1

In many coffee shops, when you order a single-origin coffee, the barista will present you with a cup of freshly ground coffee powder to smell first. This marks the beginning of coffee appreciation through its dry aroma. For example, in Latin American coffees, you will detect aromas similar to nuts and dark chocolate; while coffees from African regions often feature floral, grassy, and fruity flavors. These differences stem from variations between plantations.

Tasting the Flavors

Step 2

This refers to the overall sensation you experience when the coffee enters your mouth and you can perceive its flavors. Each coffee seed exhibits different characteristics based on its variety, origin, cultivation methods, processing techniques, and storage conditions.

Try comparing your sensations of the coffee beans with the flavor notes recorded. With more tasting experience, you will clearly understand your preferences and style!

Perceiving the Aftertaste

Step 3

This step is what fascinates me most. After swallowing coffee, there's always a flavor that returns from your throat. Some aftertastes are persistent and clear, while others are brief and vague. Only coffee with deep aftertaste can awaken the memory of your taste buds.

Understanding Acidity

Step 4

Too many friends, when they hear about acidity in coffee, immediately show an attitude of "I refuse." Many people prefer very mellow or even strongly flavored coffees, thinking that's what gives them the kick they need. However, if you want to become a coffee connoisseur, the key to entry is understanding the acidity in coffee. But it must be clarified here that the more acidic coffee is not necessarily better. The sweet and acidic substances in coffee are components that contribute to the complexity of coffee flavor.

Perceiving Body

Step 5

In professional coffee tasting, this indicator is also called mouthfeel, which can be visually explained as water versus oil. Oil is more viscous than water, so the mouthfeel value will be higher than water. High-quality coffee will have a fuller and more substantial mouthfeel than low-quality coffee, resulting in a higher score. Some coffees feel very full in the mouth, while others feel very watery with fleeting, transient flavor sensations. The former is superior, the latter inferior.

Identifying Defects

Step 6

A cup of coffee, from smelling the dry aroma to the sweet aftertaste after drinking, should have no negative flavors throughout the entire process, such as: unclean taste, astringency, or fermented flavors. If such tastes are present, we consider this coffee to have an unclean cup profile and absolutely cannot be considered specialty coffee. Many friends hope to make breakthroughs in cupping quickly, but the core task of this breakthrough is being able to detect and identify negative flavors.

When we talk about tasting a cup of coffee, we generally follow this sequence, appreciating each aspect one by one. If every indicator is positive, then we give this coffee an overall higher score. Those with certain cupping experience will notice that the sequence we provide is arranged according to the coffee temperature from high to low. But regardless, understanding coffee and improving coffee tasting abilities must be built upon the foundation of frequent tasting practice.

This is just as the old oil seller said: It's all about practice and familiarity, nothing more.

FrontStreet Coffee

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find both famous and lesser-known beans. Online store services are also available. https://shop104210103.taobao.com

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