Unveiling Coffee Astringency: Distinguishing Astringency from Tea-Like Notes! What Do Tea-Like Notes Mean in Pour-Over Coffee?

Whenever friends hesitate in front of the FrontStreet Coffee bean selection menu, FrontStreet Coffee always recommends suitable beans by asking about customers' preferences, directly breaking the "dilemma" of choice difficulty. Then FrontStreet Coffee discovered that besides popular preferences like floral notes, fruit acidity, and nutty chocolate, many friends also appreciate relatively niche characteristics like "tea rhyme": "I want a coffee with a stronger tea-like sensation." These friends would say.

This might surprise many people—tea is tea, coffee is coffee, how can you taste tea-like sensations in coffee?

But in fact, we can indeed taste tea-like nuances from coffee. For example, in the latest version of the coffee flavor wheel, there is a "black tea" flavor, although it's categorized under the floral section.

Although the flavor wheel only includes black tea, in reality, the types of tea-like nuances we can taste from coffee are far more numerous. If you frequently read FrontStreet Coffee's articles, you might have noticed that in the aftertaste flavor descriptions of some coffees, FrontStreet Coffee uses descriptions of other tea types such as green tea, oolong tea, and white tea. So the question arises: why do coffees have tea-like nuances?

Why Coffee Has Tea-Like Nuances

It's quite simple—because coffee also contains aromatic compounds identical to those found in tea leaves. In the article "Is Coffee Flavor Just Mysticism?" FrontStreet Coffee explained in detail that the various flavors we taste from coffee mainly come from the combination of volatile compounds and taste. After coffee enters the mouth, our taste buds first determine the intensity of the flavor, and then volatile aromatic substances slip into the nasal cavity during swallowing to be captured by our sense of smell. Immediately afterward, the brain combines the tastes detected by our taste buds with the aromas captured by our sense of smell, then searches through our memory bank for similar foods, thereby forming flavor.

The same principle applies to why we can taste tea-like nuances from coffee—because coffee also contains some compounds identical to tea aromas, naturally allowing us to associate tea-like qualities. However, compared to "tea rhyme," we more often use "tea sensation" to describe it. Because in many cases, we need to combine mouthfeel/tactile sensation to make the "tea" flavor in coffee more three-dimensional.

The Phenomenon of "Saliva Induction and Sweet Aftertaste"

"Saliva induction and sweet aftertaste" is a sensation we often experience when drinking tea. Simply put, when we drink some teas, we can feel a slight astringent sensation on the tongue, followed by a sweet aftertaste. This phenomenon occurs due to one of the main components that provide tea color and aroma—tea polyphenols. Among polyphenolic compounds, tea tannins, which have the highest proportion, not only enhance the concentration of tea character but also make the tea's texture rougher, creating the so-called astringent sensation, stimulating salivary glands to secrete saliva, thereby generating a sweet aftertaste. When tea tannins are present in higher concentrations in tea, the saliva induction and sweet aftertaste we experience when drinking tea become stronger and more lasting.

In addition, sensations like saliva induction and sweet aftertaste can also be formed through organic acids. Organic acids stimulate salivary gland secretion, thus creating the feeling of "saliva induction and sweet aftertaste." This is similar to the sensation we experience when eating fruits like bayberries or green plums. Since coffee itself is rich in organic acids, we often experience "saliva induction and sweet aftertaste" when drinking coffee. When combined with the tea aromas provided by other compounds, it creates the "tea sensation"—having both the taste of tea and the textural experience of tea.

However, it should be noted that because the astringent sensation in coffee mainly comes from chlorogenic acid, its astringency still differs slightly from tea astringency. For example, some coffees' astringency might carry a faint bitterness, which is closely related to their sugar content. Then, like other flavor expressions, not all coffees will have tea sensations.

What Types of Coffee Have Tea Sensations?

Whether a cup of coffee can have tea sensations is closely related to the coffee bean variety, cultivation, processing, roasting, and brewing. The first three determine whether coffee can possess tea sensations and their types, while the latter two determine the intensity of tea sensations in coffee. Just as the Geisha (T2722) variety has more floral notes due to more terpenes in its genes, some coffee beans also possess tea-like nuances from the beginning due to having more compounds identical to tea in their genetic makeup. For example, Geisha (T2722)...

The cultivation of coffee beans goes without saying—the growing environment can determine the accumulation and richness of substances. Coffee beans from some origins are renowned for their outstanding tea sensations, such as Ethiopian Sidamo and Yirgacheffe... When it comes to post-processing, different processing methods give coffee different types of tea sensations. For example, washed processing is cleaner, making the tea sensation in coffee lean toward fresh and pure types, like green tea (not necessarily), while natural processing makes coffee undergo more fermentation, making the tea sensation lean toward richer flavor types, like honey-scented black tea (not necessarily)...

Then there's coffee roasting—the degree of roasting determines the aroma expression of coffee. Generally speaking, most coffees where we can taste tea sensations use medium or lighter roasts, namely medium, medium-light, and light roasts. Because their roasting degree is lighter, they haven't undergone excessive caramelization reactions, so coffee doesn't have too much bitter-burnt flavor to mask its inherent aromas, making tea sensations more prominent. Often we hear descriptions like "this coffee doesn't taste like coffee, but more like a cup of tea." The reason is that the coffee isn't roasted dark, so we can't taste the "coffee flavor" (bitterness) from traditional impressions, plus the rich coffee flavors and tea sensations make it easier for people to associate it with drinking a cup of floral and fruit tea.

Finally, there's brewing! Because the source of astringency in coffee is mainly reflected in the aftertaste, sweet return, and other terminal parts of coffee tasting, this means we need to ensure more complete extraction from the coffee. When coffee extraction is insufficient or the extraction rate isn't high enough, the aftertaste and sweet return performance will be lacking, making tea sensations less obvious.

Therefore, when we want to taste tea sensations from a cup of coffee, besides purchasing coffee beans that exhibit tea sensations, we also need to ensure the coffee achieves sufficient extraction. As for recommendations of tea-sensation beans, you can refer to the following varieties: Panama Mariposa, Boquete Geisha, La Esperanza Geisha, Peru Geisha, Yirgacheffe Gudina, Sidamo Fakuq, Alo, Elto...

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