What is the Tea-like Sensation in Pour-over Coffee? How to Describe Coffee Flavor and Mouthfeel

Many coffee flavor descriptions contain various tea-related adjectives, sometimes even specifying particular tea names. This has led some friends to mention to FrontStreet Coffee, "Some coffees taste just like tea, completely unlike coffee at all!" This perhaps represents the tactile sensation that coffee in the cup brings to our tongues!

What is Tea Sensation?

When drinking tea, polyphenols in the tea infusion are the main substances that constitute tea's mouthfeel. Tea polyphenols are one of the primary components forming tea's color, aroma, and flavor. Their changes during brewing affect the tea's drinking experience. Among these polyphenolic compounds, tea tannins, which account for the largest proportion, are what make tea taste rich and aromatic while creating a "rough" sensation in the mouth—what we often describe as tea sensation.

Why Does Coffee Have Tea Sensation?

When tasting a cup of coffee, we mostly need to combine the coffee's flavor and aroma, describing various characteristics based on foods we've encountered—through both the olfactory perception before drinking and the retronasal olfaction after swallowing.

For example, when FrontStreet Coffee tastes washed Esmeralda Special Geisha, we can detect rich, delicate aromas with a sweet and mellow aftertaste, much like drinking Tieguanyin tea. Therefore, even though tea may not be explicitly described on the flavor wheel, we can still identify various tea sensations in coffee.

When coffee contains slight astringency combined with certain aromas in the cup, it also reminds us of the experience of drinking tea. "Astringency" generally describes the texture sensation brought by food rather than taste itself. When phenolic compounds in coffee contact the skin in our mouth, they create a puckering, dry sensation. This is similar to what you feel when eating a raw persimmon.

Bitter and irritating astringency can bring unpleasant experiences when tasting coffee, but there's also "good" astringency that can enrich the coffee's complexity. For example, the slight bitterness of citrus peel, combined with coffee's sweet and sour flavors, creates a mouthfeel similar to pomelo tea.

Returning to the point raised by our friend, the reason coffee "doesn't taste like coffee" is, in FrontStreet Coffee's opinion, because medium-light roasts result in higher acidity with less bitterness, combined with rich coffee aromas that remind us of teas we've had before.

What Tea Flavors Can Be Found in Coffee?

Different types of tea each have characteristic basic aroma profiles—for example, the fresh and clean notes of green tea, fruity and honey-like aromas of black tea, or oolong tea which combines floral-fruity notes with roasted aromas. When tasting coffee flavors, the combination of its aroma, aftertaste, and the degree of sweetness that returns in the mouth can remind us of specific "tea flavors."

When FrontStreet Coffee tastes washed Yirgacheffe Gedeb coffee, we experience delicate floral aromas and clear sweetness that remind us of white flower notes, much like unfermented green tea.

Natural-processed Yunnan Typica coffee, which retains fruit pulp that ferments together under sunlight, allows the coffee beans to absorb more fermented aromas. FrontStreet Coffee tastes sweet, mellow aromas with a solid aftertaste, presenting the mouthfeel of fully fermented black tea.

Many coffees with floral and fruity notes easily remind us of the smooth texture of oolong tea. For instance, natural-processed Panama Elida Estate Geisha coffee offers rose and honey peach-like sweetness with elegance and abundant charm, presenting the rich yet delicate aromas characteristic of lightly fermented oolong tea.

Beyond traditional teas, some complex flavors in coffee also remind us of certain memorable tastes. For example, when FrontStreet Coffee tasted the TOH Washed Category champion coffee bean from Ethiopia Guji Uraga, the full-bodied sweet and sour citrus juice, pomelo peel fruitiness mixed with oolong tea's returning sweetness, was much like drinking a warm honey pomelo tea.

Coffee flavors manifest in thousands of variations due to differences in each person's sensory memory database. China's tea culture is deeply ingrained, so when we encounter premium aromas and "familiar" mouthfeels in coffee, we subconsciously describe them using tea sensations/tea aromas.

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