Coffee Tasting Tips & Coffee Cupping

July 10, 2012 - PRLog -- We can smell thousands of different smells but we can only actually taste salty, sweet, sour and bitter, but it is the combination of smell and taste that allows us to distinguish the flavour, which is all important when it comes to coffee.

Flavour is the overall perception of the coffee in your mouth, with the components of the flavour being the acidity, aroma and body.  When you balance and blend these senses you create the overall perception of flavour.

So what is the difference between acidity, aroma and body and what should you be looking for when tasting a cup of coffee.  If we begin with looking at acidity, this is a desirable characteristic in coffee and can be described as zingy and tangy and produces dryness on your tongue and at the back of your palate.  Again similar to the taste of wine, acidity in coffee provides a sharp, bright, vibrant quality, without which coffee would taste flat.  

The aroma adds to the flavours we detect on our palates, but it is tricky to separate from flavour.  Whilst the body is how the coffee feels in the mouth, whether it is demonstrates a heaviness, thickness or richness which is primarily perceived on the tongue.  A good example of body would be the feeling of whole milk in your mouth, as opposed to water.

There are many ways to describe the flavour of coffee (http://www.espressocoffeeclub.co.uk/capsules/) from delicate to earthy to fragrant and aromatic.  When talking about the richness, this refers to the body and fullness of the coffee, whilst the term complexity is the perception of multiple flavours.

Coffee cupping is the posh term for coffee tasting and is used by ‘Master Tasters’ and professional coffee tasters, although anyone can have a go at coffee cupping.  Once again, similar wine tasting you should deeply sniff the coffee (http://www.espressocoffeeclub.co.uk/overview/) and then loudly slurp so it spreads to the back of your tongue.  
 
To have a go at coffee cupping, you grind the coffee and add nearly boiling water to the cup and let sit for two to three minutes.  This is called steeping and should form a crust or cap on the top of the water, by gently breaking this crust with a spoon there should be a fine-celled foam, this is a good time to smell the coffee as the fragrance will be under the crust.   Then simply fill a spoon with the brewed coffee (http://www.espressocoffeeclub.co.uk/espresso/) avoiding floating grounds and take a good slurp.  Swirling the coffee around your mouth will give you a good taste of the flavours, then spit out and remember to rinse your mouth before trying the next one!