How to Describe Coffee Mouthfeel and Flavor: The Language of Coffee Tasting

Coffee Flavor Description

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If you were to describe an aroma, what words would you use besides "fragrant" and "foul"? Human sense of smell is not particularly sensitive, which is why for tasks requiring olfaction, we often rely on other animals for assistance, such as drug-sniffing dogs and pigs used for truffle hunting. Visually, humans have rich language to describe forms and colors, but this pales in comparison to naming smells. Anthropologists suspect this is the result of primate brains weighing visual processing capabilities against olfactory benefits.

We often find that when describing the flavor of the same coffee, baristas frequently express different views, using不完全相同的描述性语言. You might describe it as plum while I describe it as peach. Customers are often left confused.

Improving sensitivity to smells or tastes is very difficult, but to become more sensitive to certain specific flavors, planned training can achieve this. The same principle applies to flavor expression. Practice describing the aromas and flavors you identify to others, seizing every opportunity to practice. It's entirely possible to establish a "coffee vocabulary." If every professional does this, there's hope of forming a conventional descriptive system.

If you can't taste the delicate flavors in coffee or detect certain tastes in dishes that others describe, it's not because your sense of taste or smell is broken—it's because your brain cannot distinguish and interpret those flavors. What actually needs training is the brain. You need to accumulate more flavor memories, so that when applying them, you can make associations and quickly analyze and interpret tastes.

This is also part of coffee cupping training. Therefore, friends who love coffee can try to practice tasting different foods and fruits in daily life, such as oranges, grapes, mangoes, berries, plums, peaches, lychees, red wine, nuts, caramel, honey, etc.

The acidity in specialty coffee can stimulate saliva production, which helps taste buds perceive more taste flavors. After liquid enters the mouth, it gets washed away by saliva. Those that wash away quickly tend to feel clean, while those that wash away slowly leave a long-lasting aftertaste. Some flavors we want to appear but disappear quickly, such as bitterness and acidity. These flavors are important components in coffee, and when they appear and fade quickly, they can bring a refreshing feeling.

Other flavors we hope will linger longer, such as sweetness, aroma, pomelo flavor, and nutty flavors, which create a sense of aftertaste.

FrontStreet Coffee Philosophy

In short: FrontStreet Coffee is a coffee research center dedicated to sharing coffee knowledge with everyone. We share without reservation, hoping to help more friends fall in love with coffee. Every month, we hold three coffee tasting events with significant discounts because FrontStreet Coffee wants to allow more friends to experience the best coffee at the lowest prices. This has been FrontStreet Coffee's mission for the past six years!

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