Strawberry, jasmine, lavender, citrus, grape, apricot, mango, honey...these are the aromas we often smell when grinding coffee beans and brewing coffee. If you are a novice who has just come into contact with specialty coffee, then it is no surprise that you will be deceived by such "illusions"!
Because these aromas can arouse people's imagination and let us imagine how sweet this cup of coffee tastes. Then after you take a sip of coffee, you will most likely scream with ferocious features: "Help, why does this coffee taste so bitter? It's completely different from what I smell!"
This is a topic that Front Street often shares, because friends often have this discussion with Front Street when buying beans at Front Street offline stores. Why doesn’t the coffee smell good when I drink it? Why does coffee smell delicious but taste bitter?
It's simple, because the senses we use to "smell" and "drink" are different, as well as the content that the senses are exposed to! The main sense we rely on when "smelling" is smell; when "drinking", in addition to smell, we also rely on other senses such as taste and touch.
Different senses will expose us to different content. Putting this aside for now, although we can perceive aroma when smelling and drinking, what we smell will also be different.
Research shows that roasted coffee contains more than 850 aroma substances, and most of these aromas are volatile. When the coffee beans are ground into powder we can capture the richest and most complex aroma! Because after the coffee beans are crushed and crushed, a large amount of aromatic substances will be emitted and there will be more contact surfaces, so the volatile aroma will diffuse quickly at this time, and we can smell the strong coffee aroma even without bringing our noses close.
When brewing coffee, the contact between hot water and coffee powder will also accelerate the release of aroma. However, compared with the former, its aroma will not be as strong. We need to get close to the cup to smell it, but it is still very rich.
Whether it is the dry or wet aroma of coffee, we basically use the "prenasal sense of smell" when sniffing it. When drinking coffee, we capture the aroma mainly through the "retronasal sense of smell". That is, smelling the aroma emitted by the liquid in the mouth through the nasal passages in the mouth.
Even if the amount of aroma of the coffee in your mouth is the same as before your entrance, the aroma perceived by the post-nasal sense of smell will be much less than that of the pre-nasal sense of smell. Because some of these aromas will be degraded after the coffee liquid enters the mouth, and coupled with the airflow guidance during swallowing, they cannot be effectively diffused over a wide range. Therefore, the aroma captured by our post-nasal sense of smell will be less. This is why coffee does not smell as fragrant.
In addition, it is also because we feel more about the taste when drinking coffee. The water-soluble flavors in coffee, such as bitterness and sourness, can directly impact our taste buds and be perceived by us. Compared with the ethereal fragrance, the feelings they bring will be more obvious.
Then, in addition, the aroma we felt when we smelled it has already made us associate the taste of coffee, but the taste turned out to be very different from what we imagined, with a huge contrast, so it is easy for us to ignore the aroma of coffee and only focus on the taste of coffee. This is why coffee smells delicious but tastes bitter/sour.
But in fact, we can also feel the obvious aroma after drinking the coffee, but we need to use a little trick. This little trick is actually what Front Street shared in Yu Yun’s article two days ago – keep your mouth shut and breathe back. After swallowing the coffee, we exhale through the nasal cavity, so that the aroma remaining in the mouth can reach the nasal cavity, allowing us to taste more aroma.
Let’s start with an example. When grinding the Front Street Sun-dried Oiran into powder, you can smell the dry aroma of strawberry, mango, and guava. When brewing, you can smell the wet aroma of jasmine, oolong tea, and berries. After swallowing the coffee, you can smell the very rich aromas of pineapple, strawberry, guava, and floral aromas from the Front Street Oiran Coffee.
Although it is not as strong as what you smell when dry, because of the presence of coffee, these aromas become more three-dimensional, allowing us to better associate specific flavors.
The same goes for the taste. The reason why the first sip of coffee feels very bitter and sour is because our mouth has not yet adapted to the sudden taste of coffee. However, after the first sip, the mouth adapts to the taste of coffee, and the taste of subsequent coffees will become softer and softer. The coffee will most likely taste very soft until it is completely cooled. So everyone might as well be more patient after suffering a lot, and maybe you can accept it after taking a few more sips~
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
