For more knowledge about specialty coffee, please pay attention to: Front Street Coffee (Frontsteet Coffee）
Front Street believes that when many friends first come into contact with specialty coffee, they think that coffee shops are gathering places for literary figures. Because whether it is a customer in a coffee shop or a friend around him, he can always describe a cup of coffee at length. On the other hand, when Front Street first came into contact with coffee, the highest comments he could give to a cup of coffee were: delicious...sweet...or: this cup of coffee has a strong coffee flavor...
In response to this situation, Front Street has actually shared it several times before. This was not due to our lack of vocabulary. It was just that we did not know how to "appreciate coffee" at that time, so we failed to grasp the rules of describing coffee.
Tasting coffee sounds difficult, but it’s actually quite simple. Because there is a universal formula here. As long as we follow this formula, we will know how to evaluate whether a cup of coffee is good or bad. At the same time, by converting our feelings during the tasting process into words or language, we can describe a cup of coffee in a clear and logical manner. Then Front Street will share the five steps of coffee tasting! I hope it can help you become a coffee tasting/description master faster!
The first step of tasting: smell the aroma
During the roasting process, coffee will generate a large amount of aromatic substances due to chemical reactions, and these substances cannot only be brought out by water. When coffee beans are ground into powder, a large amount of aromatic substances are released as the bean structure breaks down. Therefore, tasting coffee begins when the coffee beans are ground into powder. The first step we need to do is to capture and feel the aromas that permeate the air through the sense of smell in front of the nose and through inhalation. To put it simply: smell the fragrance~
Smelling fragrance is mainly divided into two steps: smelling dry fragrance and smelling wet fragrance. Dry aroma mainly refers to the aroma emitted in the dry state of coffee beans after they are ground into powder and before brewing. This stage is when the aroma concentration is the strongest; while wet aroma refers to the aroma emitted by coffee powder after it comes into contact with hot water. Compared with dry fragrance, the performance of wet fragrance will be much weaker, but because of the decrease in concentration, we have a probability of capturing different aroma characteristics.
Generally speaking, the aroma of medium-light roasted beans is mainly fresh, such as floral and fruity aromas, and representative coffees are Front Street Fruit Ding Ding, Front Street Oiran, Front Street Gesha, etc.; while the aroma of medium-dark roasted beans is mainly lighter types such as burnt aroma, chocolate, spices, etc. Representative coffees are Front Street Golden Mandheling, Front Street Cymbidium, and Front Street Queen's Manor. Then according to their respective aroma performance, we can add corresponding adjectives to them to make it a description. Take the fragrance of flowers as an example. There are many adjectives to describe the fragrance of flowers, such as fragrant, elegant, etc. Just choose according to the tonality of the fragrance~
The second step of tasting: taste
After smelling the aroma, it’s time to come to the most important part: drink! We need to feel the coffee entering our mouth from three different angles. Since they are all done simultaneously, Front Street will explain them one by one in order. The first thing is: the taste of coffee. There are four flavors we can feel in coffee: sour, sweet, bitter, and salty.
But we don’t just feel the taste of this cup of coffee, we also need to identify its concentration and quality. Let’s take acid as an example (because it is mainly acid). The acid in coffee can be divided into good and bad. We are used to calling it acidity. Excellent acidity will make coffee feel comfortable to drink. Descriptors related to it include: soft, bright, lively...; otherwise, it will make coffee difficult to swallow. Descriptors related to it include: sharp, dull, stimulating...
The third step of tasting: flavor
Flavor perception is the most popular aspect of specialty coffee. By combining the aroma and taste of the coffee you drink, you can then associate it with the taste of certain foods that you often come into contact with in your daily life.
This is the greatest pleasure of coffee tasting, but it is also the most difficult. The core reason why many friends are unable to describe coffee is that they cannot associate the flavor of coffee and only stay in the second step of perceiving the taste. In this case, Front Street suggests that you first understand the perception of flavor~
After we successfully acquire flavor perception, we can combine the taste to make simple sentences. For example: you feel the citrus flavor from the coffee, and then the acidity of the coffee gives you a bright feeling, then the description can be: bright citrus acidity.
The fourth step of tasting: taste
Taste refers to the tactile feeling that coffee brings to us. We often hear the word "body". In the coffee circle, this word mainly describes the body of coffee. The body of coffee refers to the "weight" felt by the tongue after the coffee enters the mouth.
Take an example often cited on the street: skim milk, whole milk, and cream. These three different dairy products provide completely different tastes. The taste of skim milk is as light and thin as water, while the taste of whole milk is thicker, fuller and smoother, and the cream is very thick and heavy. The same goes for coffee!
When the coffee body is higher, the weight felt by the tongue is heavier; when the coffee body is lower, the opposite is true.
The last step of tasting: the finish
After we experience the coffee from the above three angles, we can swallow it. After swallowing, there is still one item left for us to feel, and that is the aftertaste of the coffee. In other words, coffee tasting should not end until you feel the aftertaste.
"Aftertaste", in layman's terms, is the aroma that stays in the mouth after swallowing the coffee, or the obvious coffee aroma can still be felt in the mouth.
The aftertaste of coffee mainly comes from the "capture" of coffee aroma by the post-nasal sense of smell. The principle is very simple: there are many oil-soluble aromatic substances in coffee. After drinking coffee, some of the oil in the coffee will remain in the mouth and has not been swallowed. Then as the oil gradually disintegrates, these aroma substances hidden in the oil will evaporate, and then be captured by our post-nasal sense of smell, thus feeling the aroma. This is the aftertaste!
The evaluation of the aftertaste is also divided into two aspects, one is the length of duration, and the other is the quality of the aroma. An excellent aftertaste will have a longer residual time, because this means that the coffee substance content is more and it has been fully extracted (the aftertaste time of different extraction methods is different); judging the quality of the aftertaste from the aroma aspect is the same as the flavor, mainly depends on whether the flavor it emits is positive or negative.
Front Street takes light-roasted Pour over(V60) coffee as an example. In light-roasted Pour over(V60) coffee, a high-quality aftertaste lasts for about ten seconds or more, and the flavor can include light floral aroma, tea flavor, honey, etc.; a bad aftertaste lasts for a short time or even none. The flavor performance is: dry, bitter, or other unpleasant tastes.
Summary
Through the above five steps, we have completed the tasting of a cup of coffee. Next, we only need to describe what we felt during the tasting process. Next, Front Street will share an example about the tasting description of Green Label Geisha: During the smelling stage, we You can clearly feel the aroma of green tea and citrus, followed by the fragrant jasmine aroma. After drinking it, you can capture the sour and sweet rising berries, honeydew melon aroma, and jasmine. The taste is round and silky, and the long aftertaste is the aroma of green tea!
But this is an example. As we all know, Front Street generally does not say this~ Friends who have been to Front Street stores will know that the description given by Front Street is usually: Hmm! This cup of Geisha really tastes like Geisha...
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
