Why Can't I Taste Coffee Flavors? How to Enhance Your Sensory Judgment of Coffee Taste

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Introduction

Many beginners in single-origin coffee share the same confusion: when drinking the same cup of coffee, baristas can describe its strawberry-like sweetness and rose fragrance... while you can only taste sourness and bitterness, missing everything else! Is your tongue not sensitive enough? Or do baristas have flavor radar installed in their tongues?! How can we develop that same "radar tongue" that baristas possess?

What is Coffee Flavor?

For identifying coffee flavors, we divide them into two parts: olfaction and taste. The generation of coffee flavors and tastes is closely related to the degree of roasting. Two days ago, FrontStreet Coffee mentioned when introducing the old version of the coffee flavor wheel that the flavor arrangement in that version goes from light to heavy, which also demonstrates the process of how coffee taste changes from light to dark roasts. Sour and sweet substances have lighter molecular weights and high water solubility, making them the quickest to be perceived and tasted, while bitter substances have heavier molecular weights and low water solubility, often appearing later in the tasting process.

So what about saltiness? Saltiness loves to play with the two sisters, sour and sweet. When sour and sweet are together, they can mask saltiness, making us unable to perceive its existence. If we taste saltiness when drinking coffee, it's a red flag for the coffee bean's freshness, warning everyone that the sour and sweet sisters have been "eliminated" by the devil of oxidation.

The Division of Labor on the Tongue!

For perceiving the four basic tastes, the tongue has its own division of labor. The tip of the tongue perceives sweetness, the sides near the tip perceive saltiness, the sides near the root perceive sourness, and the root of the tongue perceives bitterness. This also explains why we perceive sour and sweet substances first when drinking coffee, followed by bitter substances.

The Division of Labor in the Nasal Cavity!

Nasal olfaction for taste judgment is divided into two types: anterior nasal olfaction and posterior nasal olfaction. Anterior nasal olfaction refers to directly inhaling into the nasal cavity to perceive external odors. For example, when coffee beans are ground into powder, we smell the aromatic vaporized substances. Posterior nasal olfaction is often mistaken for being tasted by the tongue, but it's actually the olfactory experience that occurs after tasting coffee, when saliva catalyzes the release of aromatic molecules hidden in coffee oils, which enter the nasal cavity through the nasopharyngeal passage via the mouth.

How to Judge Coffee Flavor?

Taste and smell are responsible for gathering and transmitting information, while the brain is responsible for association. The mouth and nasal cavity are interconnected. When coffee enters the mouth, the tongue first detects the tastes in the coffee, then hands it over to the nasal cavity to identify the coffee's aroma, and finally transmits the sensations to the brain for association. The brain finds which food/flower scent is closest to the taste and aroma perceived at this moment, thereby forming the coffee's flavor.

I Tasted Different Flavors in the Same Coffee, Is This Normal?

There are 4,000 documented flavors for coffee description. Everyone's judgment and memory of tastes are different - it's a very subjective sensory experience. The joy of tasting coffee lies in perceiving a flavor and then sharing and discussing it with people around you.

If you're constrained by the flavors listed on the coffee bean information card, you'll only lead yourself into misconceptions, because coffee flavors themselves have no single standard. The flavor descriptions on information cards serve only as "guides," selecting the flavor words most frequently used by baristas during cupping to help everyone choose coffee beans that suit their taste preferences.

What to Do If You Can't Describe Detailed Coffee Flavors?

For beginners in coffee, not being able to taste coffee flavors is normal. In this situation, what methods can we use to improve our flavor judgment?

① Build Your Own Flavor Memory

When tasting the same food, besides perceiving its sweet, sour, bitter, and salty tastes, we can further perceive the aroma the food brings. For example, when tasting an apple now, you can smell its aroma before peeling, smell it again after peeling, feel the apple's sweetness and sourness when taking a bite, then close your mouth and exhale through your nose to experience the posterior nasal olfaction and perceive the apple's scent. Compare how this differs from the apple aroma smelled directly, thereby building a more complete flavor memory of the apple.

② Seek Multiple Similar Smelling Foods/Flowers for Flavor Comparison

For example: What's the difference between the sweet and sour sensation of strawberries and raspberries?

For example: What's the difference between the aroma of hazelnuts and almonds?

For example: What's the difference between the aroma of jasmine flowers and ginger flowers?

By comparing tastes/aromas of similar foods/flowers, you can better distinguish the subtle differences between flavors.

③ Try More Light Roast Coffee Beans

If you want to experience more coffee flavors, light roast coffee beans are an excellent sensory "training ground." Compared to dark roast coffee beans, light roast coffee beans offer richer flavors, providing more materials for everyone to identify coffee tastes.

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on WeChat: kaixinguoguo0925

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473