How to Recover Sense of Smell and Taste After COVID-19? How to Taste Coffee Flavors

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The Challenge of Sensory Loss After COVID-19

Temporary loss of smell and taste is one of the symptoms some people experience after contracting COVID-19. For food enthusiasts, this can be particularly distressing. For those who work in sensory evaluation, such as baristas, it presents an even greater challenge.

Many baristas who have初步康复 found themselves staring blankly at coffee machines on their first day back to work... because they could only detect sour and bitter flavors in coffee, completely unable to distinguish other coffee flavors! Consequently, barista exchange groups have been buzzing with discussions about how to recover their sensory abilities.

Restoration Begins with Rest

First and foremost, we need adequate rest! When experiencing loss of smell and taste, the first thing we need to do is maintain a calm mindset and avoid excessive anxiety. According to many people who have experienced similar situations, this is only temporary, with most individuals recovering basic taste and smell functions within one to two weeks. During this period, what we need to do is get sufficient rest and maintain proper nutrition.

How We Perceive Coffee Flavors

The "flavor" we often refer to equals olfactory perception + gustatory perception + tactile perception = dry/wet aroma + sour/sweet/bitter/salty + mouthfeel.

In flavor identification, taste buds/gustation play merely a supporting role. Our taste buds can only perceive five taste substances—sour, sweet, bitter, salty, and umami. Coffee doesn't contain umami, and under normal circumstances, saltiness is completely masked by sour, sweet, and bitter flavors.

True flavor identification comes from our sense of smell. (Can we still smell food once it enters our mouths?) Yes! The throat and nasal cavity are interconnected. After coffee extraction is complete, some flavor molecules are encapsulated by oils, making them difficult to perceive through direct smelling.

When these aroma-encapsulating oils enter the mouth, taste buds first determine the coffee's taste, then the oils melt on the tongue, releasing aromas. These aromas "travel" to the nasal cavity during swallowing—a phenomenon known as retronasal olfaction—whereas what we can directly smell is called orthonasal olfaction.

When our taste buds perceive taste combined with odors detected by our sense of smell, our brain associates them with specific items, forming what we recognize as coffee flavors.

How to Help Restore Taste

You can help restore taste by making a simple version of "devil's water" (tasting water). Add seasonings corresponding to sour, sweet, bitter, salty, and umami to purified/mineral water for dilution.

Professional sensory courses typically use specific materials and proportions for devil's water, but when experiencing taste loss, you can start with higher concentrations initially, then gradually dilute to minimal amounts, allowing taste buds to experience different concentrations of tastes and recording the results.

Once you can individually perceive all five tastes at different concentrations, you can have a third party mix 2-3 different tasting waters with varying concentrations and amounts, then determine which primary taste is mixed with which secondary taste.

「Sour」 can use edible citric acid 「Sweet」 can use white sugar

「Bitter」 can use edible bitter essence 「Salty」 can use table salt

「Umami」 can use MSG (monosodium glutamate)

How to Help Restore Smell

- Olfactory stimulation

Those with access can use aroma kits to help with recovery. Currently, aroma kits on the market are quite expensive, and since they undergo artificial processing, their scents might differ from actual aromas. Therefore, those without aroma kits can use everyday materials.

Based on numerous studies on smell recovery and personal experiences, smelling strongly scented items can help restore olfaction. Examples include citrus fruits, fragrant flowers, various spices—such as oranges, lemons, lilies, eucalyptus, roasted garlic, cloves, and so on. Smell these substances for 15 seconds each time, twice daily, until basic olfactory function returns.

How to Enhance Coffee Flavor Recognition

Coffee flavor itself is a very broad concept. For example: when tasting the acidity of a coffee, some people might detect lemon notes while others perceive pomelo—this is completely normal. The joy of coffee tasting lies in sharing and discussing the flavors you perceive with those around you.

Different people have varying capacities for odor memory and recognition, which explains why some people can associate specific items after one sip of coffee while others cannot. To improve coffee flavor recognition, you can build flavor memories by analyzing foods from different perspectives while consuming various foods in daily life.

For example, when eating an apple, we can first smell the apple peel, then eat only the peel to observe what flavors it contributes to taste and what aromas are perceived through retronasal olfaction after swallowing. Then smell the apple flesh, experiencing its taste and post-swallowing aromas. By savoring food in such detail, we form more profound, three-dimensional food flavor memories.

Besides building flavor memories, you can also engage in extensive comparative tasting, either vertically or horizontally. For example: same country but different regions, same region but different estates, same estate but different varieties or processing methods, or different people brewing the same coffee beans. Comparative methods can help you more quickly discern differences between coffee flavors.

The recovery time and progression of smell and taste vary from person to person. If there's no improvement over an extended period, you should consult an ENT specialist to rule out other causes.

Image source: Internet

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