Pour-Over Coffee: Beyond Just Convenient - A Beginner's Guide to Coffee Tasting Methods and Steps

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FrontStreet Coffee - Pour-over Coffee and Coffee Tasting Introduction

Single-origin coffee can be traced back to its place of origin, not just to the coffee-producing country, but even to the specific plot of land where the coffee was grown. By getting to know coffee estate owners and delving deep into coffee's origins, we understand the stories behind coffee-producing regions from the source and purchase green beans. Pour-over coffee is not only quick and convenient but also allows you to taste the different flavors from various growing regions.

Coffee Tasting

1. Aroma

Dry Aroma: Bring freshly ground coffee powder close to your nose and mouth, and you'll perceive the different dry aromas from various coffee origins. For example, in Latin American coffees, you'll notice nutty and dark chocolate-like notes, while African regional coffees often feature floral and fruity flavors.

Wet Aroma: Pour the prepared coffee into a cup, close your eyes, and slowly inhale its wet aroma. You might detect nutty, chocolate, fruity, or floral notes.

Another common misconception when tasting food is that the tongue cannot actually distinguish smells - it's only when the aroma of food enters your nasal cavity that you can fully perceive its flavor.

Poor Quality: Industrial flavoring aromas, rotten smells, earthy flavors, etc.

High Quality: The coffee's aroma contains rich scents including wine-like, floral, and fruity notes. Whether it's the dry aroma of coffee powder or the wet aroma after brewing, it will provide you with an olfactory delight.

2. Tasting Flavors

When coffee enters your mouth, you can feel its flavors. Many enthusiasts, especially those just beginning to explore coffee tasting, often think that coffee doesn't taste as good as it smells. Indeed, sensory discrimination of coffee liquid in the mouth requires some training, but over time, the various flavors become perceptible.

Another key aspect of coffee tasting is how to distinguish the sweetness, saltiness, acidity, and bitterness in coffee.

Body is what we commonly call "body" - it refers to the mature, mellow, and rich taste presented by the coffee liquid. The difference between a glass of water and a cup of coffee lies in the fact that water has no taste and isn't viscous, while espresso, rich in oils, possesses excellent body. A coffee with good body allows the aroma to linger longer in the mouth and creates a more extended aftertaste.

Body not only affects your overall coffee experience but also influences the completeness of aromatic compound release in the coffee. Most cuppers or consumers cannot clearly point out which textures are good and which are bad, but at least you know which ones you like and which you don't. In my opinion, the judgment of coffee body varies from person to person.

[Sweetness]

Poor Quality: Bitter melon, excessively bitter and astringent

High Quality: Sweet, similar to sucrose, brown sugar, caramel, with a mouth-watering sensation

Tasting Notes: Coffee with sweetness is like a fruit - coffee beans contain fructose. Even a cup of black coffee will reveal sweet notes behind the acidity or bitterness. Additionally, different coffee beans have varying levels of aftertaste sweetness - there's no good or bad, only personal preference. However, if the aftertaste is too dry and astringent, it indicates poor quality coffee beans.

[Cleanliness]

Poor Quality: Many off-flavors

High Quality: Pure and fresh taste

Tasting Notes: Actually, the astringency in coffee doesn't need to be eliminated but rather suppressed. The degree of suppression needed varies according to individual preferences. Coffee with chaotic flavors or mixed with negative off-flavors doesn't achieve cleanliness.

[Bitterness]

Poor Quality: Bitterness at the root of the tongue, rough "bitter-astringent" feeling

High Quality: Dark chocolate-like bitterness

Tasting Notes: Specialty coffee doesn't have simple "bitterness" - generally, we crudely use "bitter" to describe the pleasant bitterness among nutty, dark chocolate, and caramel flavors.

[Acidity]

Poor Quality: Rotten acidity, sharp acidity, very high acidity that makes the mouth pucker, vinegar-like acidity

High Quality: Fruit acidity, fresh acidity, rounded acidity, gentle acidity

Tasting Notes: "Sweetness is easy, good acidity is rare." The acidity in quality coffee should be contained within the coffee rather than being obvious and sharp. Quality coffees often contain large amounts of organic acidic substances, embodying rich acidic flavors like citrus and berries. The quality of acidity is an important factor in specialty coffee.

[Saltiness]

Tasting Notes: Actually, saltiness comes in many forms. Aroma can make people think of heavily salted foods, such as the smell when too much salt is added to stir-fried dishes, as well as the smell at the bottom of the cup after drinking coffee, which smells salty and reminds one of salty snacks like shrimp crackers and Want Want Senbei, and so on. In terms of mouthfeel, it's generally the taste of salt.

When making pour-over and espresso occasionally, I can taste and "smell" [saltiness] (smell refers to the aroma after grinding), and most of the time, saltiness appears more obvious in espresso.

Due to the distribution of taste sensations, acidity and saltiness are easily confused, making it difficult to distinguish between poor acidity and saltiness. However, it's still different from the saltiness of salt. Of course, some beans have exceptionally obvious saltiness, very close to the saltiness of sea salt.

3. Perceiving Aftertaste

The final aspect of tasting is aftertaste - the so-called aftertaste refers to the lingering notes that coffee brings in the mouth and throat. After drinking coffee, there's always a flavor that returns from the throat - some aftertastes are long-lasting and clear, while others are brief and vague. We consider longer-lasting and clearer aftertastes to be good, indicating higher quality green beans.

A cup of coffee, from aroma to aftertaste, should have no negative flavors throughout the entire process, such as uncleanliness, astringency, or fermented notes. If such flavors exist, we consider the coffee to be unclean and it absolutely cannot become specialty coffee. Many friends hope to make breakthroughs in cupping quickly, but the core task of this breakthrough is to be able to discover and identify negative flavors.

Knowledge Point: Coffee beans contain various organic compounds after roasting, especially acidic fats and volatile fats.

In Brief: FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee research house that enjoys sharing coffee knowledge with everyone. We share without reservation just to help more friends fall in love with coffee. Additionally, we hold three coffee discount events every month because FrontStreet Coffee wants to let more friends enjoy the best coffee at the lowest price - this has been FrontStreet Coffee's mission for the past 6 years!

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473