Today's coffee is no longer just a "functional drink" to refresh yourself, it is also a carrier of rich experiences. Due to the popularization of the concept of specialty coffee, the quality of coffee has improved dramatically, so we can taste the charm of various places through a small cup of coffee. The delicious flavors that customers and baristas talk about at the bar, such as sweet oranges, tangerines, and berries, are the flavor characteristics tasted from coffee.However, "tasting" is not an innate ability. Without learning and training, most people can only taste sour, sweet, bitter, and salty in coffee. In addition, the smell of white flowers and various fruits are just fantasies produced after eating fungi~Although not knowing how to taste is not a bad thing, when we learn how to taste, the pleasure brought by a cup of coffee will increase exponentially. So today Front Street will briefly share with you how to train and build your own sensory system, and then how to use this system to taste a cup of coffee in more detail~(In fact, not only coffee, but also wine and tea can be used)How to build your own coffee sensory system?The main reason why many friends are unable to taste the flavor of coffee at the beginning is that the perception of coffee flavor is entirely the work of the taste. But in fact, most of the "taste" we experience in daily life are actually "smells" captured through the sense of smell. Not only that, there are also some flavor expressions that need to be combined with the tactile taste to establish an "image".And these are not just exaggerated rumors. Numerous studies have already confirmed that each of our senses will directly affect the taste. In addition to taste, smell, and touch, even hearing and vision can actually affect taste. So if we want to fully appreciate a cup of coffee and directly taste the flavor of the coffee, we need to mobilize all the senses during the tasting process.Here is an example often cited in Front Street. When we eat strawberries, we will taste the "strawberry flavor", and when we eat apples, we will taste the "apple flavor". AlthoughThe taste of food is experienced through the act of "eating", but this is not all an experience brought about by the sense of taste in the mouth, but also by the sense of smell mentioned earlier.Because our sense of taste mainly tastes the five basic flavors of "sour, sweet, bitter, salty, and umami", and the so-called "strawberry flavor", "apple flavor" and other iconic flavors are actually composed of a large part of the complex aroma emitted by food after chewing. These aromas will be captured by our sense of smell through the nasal ducts in the mouth, and then combined with the taste, they form "strawberry flavor" and "apple flavor". And if we pinch our noses during tasting to prevent the aroma from being captured by the sense of smell, then we will not be able to quickly identify the specific chewed food due to the lack of olfactory sensation.From this example we can know that smell is as important as taste when tasting food, and the same is true for coffee tasting. So if we want to taste the rich floral and fruity charm from coffee, in addition to taste, we also need to mobilize other senses to experience this cup of coffee.but! Mere feelings are useless. For tastes that are not in our memory, even if we feel them from coffee, we cannot associate them with them. The reason why coffee gourmets can quickly identify the rich floral and fruity notes in coffee is not just because they feel the aroma from the coffee, but also because their brains store the memory of the corresponding aroma.It is said that memory is the persistence of psychology in time. In the process of tasting coffee, whether it is feeling, identifying, identifying, or even comparing and judging, memory is needed to support it, especially for aroma.If we want to quickly taste and identify a certain flavor from coffee, such as tasting the "strawberry flavor" in coffee, then we must first register the "strawberry flavor" in our minds.Because aroma is a volatile substance, it is invisible and cannot be seen or touched. If we want to leave an impression of it in our minds, we can only burn the memory of it in our minds through constant contact and constant feeling. And this is what Front Street often mentions: eat more, smell more, and feel more.It’s just that everyone needs to pay attention to the fact that the components of a smell are not single. For example, the “strawberry aroma” we smell when we get close to a strawberry is composed of many volatile aromas, and the “strawberry flavor” we capture from coffee may only be part of the combination that makes up the “strawberry aroma”. So this is why even though many people have obviously eaten strawberries, it is difficult to get the strawberry flavor from coffee. I always feel that this smell is very familiar, but I can't remember what it is.But if you are impressed enough by a certain flavor, such as strawberry, it is often easy to drink strawberry flavor from coffee under the insinuation of others. Because through the prompting of others, you will recall the memory of "strawberry", recall its aroma, and then compare it with the performance in coffee one by one, and finally activate the association of strawberry flavor due to the matching of certain factors. The flavor description on the coffee bean packaging serves as this guide.In addition to smell and memory, taste is of course equally important. When we put food in our mouth until it is pushed into the throat, although it is only a short 10 cm "distance", it is an important path for us to capture the taste, because the perception of taste relies on the tongue. Different areas on the tongue have different sensitivities to different flavors. With the taste buds distributed throughout the tongue, we experience various flavors.The taste felt through the taste buds on the tongue is directly sent to the brain, recorded and stored, so that when we think of something, we can directly recall its taste. Take lemon, for example. Whenever I mention it in Front Street, I always recall its high-strength acidity.So if we want to have a better experience of a cup of coffee, we can not be so anxious to swallow it when tasting it. Let the coffee stay in the mouth for a short time, so that various areas of the tongue can fully capture and analyze its taste: Is it bitter? Sour? Salty? Sweet? How acidic is acid? How bitter is it? A little more sour and a little sweet? Is it sour first and then sweet or bitter then sweet? After thorough analysis, we proceed with swallowing.During this process until the end of swallowing, the aroma of coffee will always permeate the mouth and nose, so during this period we have to feel the aroma of coffee simultaneously. Especially after swallowing, we can clearly feel the large aroma of the coffee liquid flowing through the throat, which is obvious and prominent.The next thing to share is the touch! Front Street often says that in addition to taste and aroma, the texture and temperature of food are also very important, and these experiences all come from touch. When tasting coffee, what we mainly feel is the "weight" of the coffee after entering the mouth. This cup of coffee is as light and thin as water, or as thick and viscous as cream.Different tastes will bring us different associations and different experiences. Here is an example from Front Street. When a cup of sweet, sour, fruity coffee has a thick taste, we may be more likely to think of "juice"; and if it has a lighter taste, we may be more likely to think of "fruit tea". The taste of coffee is affected by many factors, such as brewing or extraction methods. This has been shared in Front Street’s previous articles, so I won’t go into details here.All in all, after everyone has grasped the impact of the senses on coffee tasting, all that is left to do is to eat more, smell more, and feel more in daily life. There are also products on the market specially developed for this purpose.scent bottle, through scent bottles, we can conduct more in-depth training. It's just that its price is not "beautiful"... so Front Street still recommends that you accumulate more in your daily life to improve your sensory system~
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
