Coffee Tasting – It’s not that easy

Has anyone tried my experiment – exhaling after taking a sip of your coffee? Well, I have two confessions:

First, it is not as easy as I had hoped. I was drinking 8 O’clock Coffee to see if I could come up with a description of its flavor. Sorry it just tastes like coffee. Maybe if I stretch my imagination I may be able to say that it’s a tiny bit nutty. More accurately I have the taste of bitterness – not as bitter as Maxwell House – but none the less bitter. Any other description? Coffee. Not fruity, not flowery, not chocolaty, maybe slightly nutty.

Second, when I first take a sip and exhale, I don’t immediately recognize the subtleties of the coffee’s flavor. I’m embarrassed to admit it but I typically am able to sense the delicate flavor moments later as I burp up the coffee. All the subtle nuances of flavor come to mind as the aroma wafts up the back of my throat into my nasal passages. Sorry I might be grossing you out -but it’s true.

Coffee Tasting – Smelling from the Inside Out

It has actually been found that if a person is taught to recognize a particular food by sniffing its aroma, he will not necessarily recognize it by its flavor.

What? How can that be? Don’t we recognize food by a combination of the taste in our mouth and the smell in our nose?

Definitely, but there are actually receptors in the back of our noses that picks up the odor of food as we chew and swallow that are different from the receptors in the front of our noses that we use when we take a big whiff of what’s cooking in the oven.

No doubt, the aromas we sniff in the kitchen help entice our appetite. The wonderful smells our noses pick up add to the full sensory experience of dining. However, taste recognition comes by smelling from the inside-out.

So here’s a practice my coworker, Chris, was taught at a wine tasting session (I think it applies to coffee as well): after taking a sip of your next cup of coffee – BREATH OUT THROUGH YOUR NOSTRILS. Then try to put into words what comes to mind.

“I’m Drippin’ 8 O’ Clock”

My coworker, John, asked me this morning, “Did you have coffee this morning?”

I replied, “Yeah, but I’m drippin’ 8 O’ Clock.”

It must have been in the way that I said it. But John took it as a statement of utter desperation. Not only did I use 8 O’ Clock beans, but I didn’t even use my French press or vacuum pot – I brought out my drip maker! Where is my coffee ethics? Where is the snobbery?

I may have felt that way, but I didn’t mean it that way.

Last night I bought a 12 oz. bag of 8 O’ Clock coffee from Giant Eagle. $5.25 on sale.  It didn’t hit me until today, but that’s $7 a lb. Green Ethiopian Yirgacheffe from La Prima is $6.50 a lb. Sometimes when the pocketbook gets thin, it’s easy to feel guilty indulging in good coffee. But good coffee (granted I have to roast it myself – but that’s half the fun anyway) is cheaper than cheap Giant Eagle coffee that’s even on sale!

No more will my conscience cheat me from a good cup of coffee in the morning!

So what do I do with my 12 oz bag of 8 O’ Clock? Well I want to explore how to best go about learning how to best describe what I taste in coffee. So here is my ambitious endeavor: can I describe the taste of 8 O’Clock coffee? Is it possible to be more descriptive than saying, “It tastes like coffee”?

Coffee Tasting – breaking it down

Being able to distinguish the different coffee flavors or any other food, for that matter, depends our the six tastes on our tongue – sweet, sour, salty, bitter, fatty, umami (that’s Japanese for the savory taste of cooked meat) – and the multitude of aromas that are detected by our nose.

I’m currently reading a book by Avery Gilbert entitled, What the Nose Knows – the science of scent in everyday life. One comment he makes that I found encouraging and interesting is that most people think they are stunted in their ability to smell and differentiate aromas. The truth is that most of us just lack the vocabulary to describe what we are smelling.

So that made me think, maybe all we need is a cheat sheet the next time we try to describe the taste of our next cup of coffee. I personally have a short list. It is not the official coffee tasting list – which looks too intimidating to me – too many choices. But I think my list is a good start.

Fruity – Floral – Nutty – Chocolaty – Burnt

Tomorrow morning when you are drinking your cup of coffee – see if the taste or aroma falls into any of those categories.

Coffee Tasting – The Tongue and The Nose

To really enjoy coffee  – probably all types of food as well- you need a discerning tongue and a big honkin’ nose!