QUESTION: What are the four steps of tasting coffee? I’ve been getting more into expensive beans and speciality roasts, and they say a lot of things about taste notes, so I’d like to learn more about how to really experience them correctly. — Janice B
ANSWER: Just like there’s a routine wine connoisseurs go through during a wine tasting, there’s also a right way for the coffee lover to test coffee, and it uses four simple steps. Using these steps when you taste your coffee will help you start to notice subtle differences from one kind to another. You’ll also find that you’re better able to describe what you’re tasting when you go through these four steps to taste your coffee.
1. Smell Your Coffee Before You Take a Sip
Science has shown that 80 percent of the flavors we experience come from our sense of smell, not from taste. That’s why when you have a cold and your nose is stuffed up, you may notice that the taste of food and drink is not as strong as it was before. Other things can affect your sense of smell, too.
You’ll notice that when you’re hungry, your sense of smell is more perceptive, and things smell stronger than they do when you aren’t particularly hungry. Your sense of smell is also not as finely tuned in the morning, and as the day progresses, your ability to smell gets stronger and stronger. Research also shows that women tend to have a stronger sense of smell than men do, although there is variation from one individual to another.
Before you take that first sip of coffee, take a moment to smell it and see what aromas you notice. If you brewed the coffee yourself, you can also smell the dry aroma of the whole or ground coffee beans, which may reveal different aromas than the prepared liquid coffee does.
To smell your coffee, curl your hand around the edge of the cup, and bring the coffee up close to your nose. Then slowly take a sniff, savoring the smell as a whole as well as trying to pick out individual scents. Your nose is capable of picking out thousands of individual aromas. How many can you notice in your cup of coffee? Different types of coffee can have scents that are floral, spicy, woody, smoky, berry-scented, sugary like caramel, or chocolatey.
At a coffee tasting event (called a “cupping”), the smelling portion of the cupping process will begin with participants sniffing the dry coffee grounds. After a while, hot water is added to the cups to start the brewing process, while participants continue to inhale the aromas and describe them. When water is added, the coffee grounds will create a crust on the surface of the coffee, and participants sniff this crust and take note of how the scent of the coffee has changed since coming into contact with the water.
The coffee will be allowed to brew for four minutes, and then each attendee pulls the back of a spoon through the grounds, breaking the crust. This releases another burst of scent that may be stronger than the aroma of the crust or bring new aromatic notes to their attention. This is all part of the cupping form.
2. Slurp the Coffee, Drawing the Liquid Across Your Tongue
The next step, before the tasting begins, is to skim each cup to remove all the coffee grounds and prepare the coffee for tasting. Instead of drinking straight from the cup, coffee drinkers at a coffee tasting will use a spoon with a deep bowl to slurp from. This is the proper tasting technique. You can try this technique at home, too, to get the most out of your tasting experience.
Don’t worry about being quiet or polite as you slurp, either. The purpose of slurping a spoonful of coffee is to let the liquid coffee spray across different parts of your tongue. When you do this correctly, there will be a sound that goes along with it. Your tastebuds will be able to pick out new tasting notes and unique flavors of the different roasts, while the aroma of the coffee continues to reach your nose.
3. Locate Where You Notice Particular Flavors
The map of the taste buds on your tongue that you may remember from elementary school, showing different taste receptors for tasting sweet, bitter, salty, and sour flavors, has been determined to be a myth. In reality, your entire tongue can taste different flavors across its entire surface. The flavors are not stronger in any one area than they are in another.
However, every individual’s sense of taste, and the specific flavors in every cup of coffee, is different. One person may notice that they experience the taste of the coffee strongest on the tip of their tongue. Another individual may taste the coffee most on the sides of their tongue, or in the center. This is another way for you to interact with the taste of the coffee and detect individual flavors. What do you notice when slurping the coffee that you did not pick up simply by smelling it?
You can also think about the way the coffee feels in your mouth during this portion. Does it feel heavy or light? Does the liquid seem to be silky, is it easy to drink, or does it have some bite? At a coffee tasting event, during this portion of the tasting participants will spit out the coffee they have slurped, but at home, of course, you don’t have to spit out the coffee unless you want to. At professional cupping events, participants will grade each sample with a numerical score from 1 to 100.
4. Describe What You Have Experienced
This is where it all comes together. Whether you’ve kept written notes of the flavors and aromas you noticed in your coffee, or your observations of its mouthfeel, weight, and where the flavors were located on your tongue, take a moment to review them. Put the individual observations you made together into one complete picture.
It may help you describe the aroma and taste of the coffee to compare it to other foods or drinks you’ve tried. You may have memories of experiences that don’t involve food that tasting the coffee reminds you of as well. For example, coffee that has floral notes may remind you of walking through a garden, or a spicy coffee may bring up a memory of walking through the spice aisle of a store or market. Consider the aroma of the coffee that you noticed when you smelled it, the flavors you tasted, and the acidity (which can be a good thing, although it doesn’t sound too appetizing).
The four steps of tasting coffee are a Starbucks coffee method taught to baristas as part of their training. After describing the scent and taste of a particular coffee, they’re encouraged to think about how certain foods would pair with each cup of delicious coffee. You may choose a food that brings out similar flavors, such as matching a coffee that has sugary caramel notes with a sugar cookie or salted caramel candy. You can also choose flavors that aren’t similar at all but would complement the coffee, like pairing a very sweet, floral cup of coffee with a lemon cake or lemon poppyseed muffin.
Now you know how to taste your coffee like professional tasters. You can use this knowledge simply to enjoy the coffee you brew at home more fully. It is definitely a learning process but you can put what you’ve learned about the four steps of tasting coffee into practice at a cupping or coffee-tasting event. Whatever the case may be, now you’re equipped with the same method the coffee professionals use to taste and describe different coffees. You’ll probably find that using this technique gives you a deeper understanding of why you like some flavors better than others. Taking the time to savor the taste of your coffee with these four steps is likely to make every cup you drink more enjoyable than it was before.
Learn More About Coffee Tasting
Key Steps to a Perfect Coffee Tasting Experience