jim_schulman Senior Member Joined: 19 Dec 2001 Posts: 3,772 Location: Chicago Expertise: I live coffee
Posted Mon May 26, 2003, 9:00pm Subject: Talking about Coffee Taste
Coffee taste: it's the heart of our hobby. But people who will post on absolutely everything suddenly get shy when it comes to coffee taste.
Why is this? Are people scared of being shown up by a real expert? It happens to me all the time on other stuff, and I suppose it happens to others as well. It's not a big deal. My guess is that people just aren't comfortable talking about coffee taste; it's not something we normally do.
The cupping instructions are helpful; but they are also forbidding, technical, and just a lot of work. How about the way coffee tastes without slurping, spitting, and giving grades?
Geoff Watts, the coffee buyer and head roaster at Intelligentsia, has a simple suggestion: Pay attention to the coffee when you drink, and then TALK ABOUT IT. Just say something! Try to describe it. The more practice you get talking about coffee, the better you'll get. If you're alone, talk to yourself.
This is great advice; but it also helps to have a vocabulary. The tastewheels used by the SCAA are nice, but again, arcanely arranged and larded with technical terms. I've appended a text file to this post giving a version in regular English. Print it out, and when you drink a cup, try to zero in on the tastes and aromas you're getting. It'll give you some nice descriptive words to use.
Posted Tue May 27, 2003, 6:56am Subject: Re: Talking about Coffee Taste
Thanks for the great info and the suggestions Jim. Like many folks, I've always felt that I simply lacked the vocabulary necessary to discuss the taste of coffee - this is a good place to start.
ThaRiddla Senior Member Joined: 27 May 2003 Posts: 178 Location: Chicago Expertise: Professional
Espresso: LM GS/3 Grinder: Mazzer Mini
Posted Tue May 27, 2003, 12:44pm Subject: Re: Talking about Coffee Taste
Jim, great post. I often run into this when training new hires, talking to customers at our stores, or even with myself. (something that I am ever-so-slowly getting over) Talking about flavor was something that I was highly lacking in, until I took it upon myself to get into situations where I had to talk about it. Some tips: I found that having a couple of different coffees in front of me at one time really helped distinguish flavors for me. Simply having one limited my ability to pick out characteristics of coffees, even if I knew what I was looking for. Go back and taste your first after tasting the 2nd or 3rd. You will notice a difference.
Trust your palette. If you think you taste something, you probably do. Write it down, or say it.
Don't be afraid to speak your mind. I was sitting in on a tea tasting about a month ago with some others at the works...I spoke up that something tasted like "canned green beans" much to the surprise of everyone there. It turned out that many of the people could recognize that taste once I said something. There are rarely any wrong answers.
Espresso: Reneka Techno Grinder: Mazzer Mini Vac Pot: Hario Deco-5 Roaster: WB Poppery I
Posted Wed May 28, 2003, 10:53am Subject: Re: Talking about Coffee Taste
phaelon56 Said:
Thanks for the great info and the suggestions Jim. Like many folks, I've always felt that I simply lacked the vocabulary necessary to discuss the taste of coffee - this is a good place to start.
You are right, there is the vocabulary issue, but there's also the amount of experience one has to accumulate before engaging in such discussions.
You see, I've been drinking good to great coffee for around a year now, but I still don't feel confident I could discuss with Jim who really knows a great deal more about roasting and coffee in general than I do.
One other limiting factor is the amount of coffee you have to try before having good idea of what's out there and what it is that you prefer. I'm still trying a lot of coffee, and I only begin to see what I like and why (varietal, roasting profile, brewing).
My approach is to try to read as much as I can on the subject from people like Jim, but I seriously doubt that I could bring much to a discussion about tastes even if I had the taste description down perfectly because I just don't know yet what I prefer (and even that could change...)
Anyway, it's a good idea to start from the beginning to identify what the different tastes are. So thanks Jim for the links.
Heatgunroast Senior Member Joined: 10 Feb 2003 Posts: 357 Location: Los Angeles Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: La Spaziale Vivaldi II Grinder: Mazzer Mini; Zass Vac Pot: Royal Balance Brewer Drip: Various press and pour-overs Roaster: Heatgun, Dogbowl
Posted Wed May 28, 2003, 12:14pm Subject: Re: Talking about Coffee Taste
I really appreciate the "friendly" sheet of taste terms. I reformatted it to get it on a single page and will laminate it because I'm sure it's going to get a lot of use around coffee splashes. Now, just a few vocabulary questions that my 15 lb. "Oxford American Dictionary" couldn't answer, but I'm sure that folks in CoffeeGeekLand will come through. First, my success: "leesy" refers to the wine sediment at the bottom of the barrel, but . . . . "cappy"? (guessing, like the inside of a cap?) "erpsig"? (I don't wanna guess) "rioy"? "grady"?
ljguitar Senior Member Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 2,450 Location: Cheyenne Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: Expobar Pulsar Grinder: Mazzer Super Jolly, Solis Drip: Bunn Roaster: iRoast2
Posted Wed May 28, 2003, 12:33pm Subject: Re: Talking about Coffee Taste
another_jim Said:
Pay attention to the coffee when you drink, and then TALK ABOUT IT. Just say something! Try to describe it. The more practice you get talking about coffee, the better you'll get. If you're alone, talk to yourself...
This might be inadvisable when one is in the restaurant by one's self.
Bus boys, waiters, managers, & baristi are only accustomed to seeing a 'certain kind' of clients who sit over a cup of coffee and talk to themselves about the coffee!(or from their perspective...to the coffee).
Rioy is an old coffee term meaning like the cheap coffees exported from Rio: harsh, acrid, astringent, as if someone had brewed coffee with bleach or ammonia.
Erpsig is German for peas-like, basically the cooked bean, pea, or lentil smell. I find this to be the smell of a lot of unroasted decafs. Fortunately, once they're roasted, that goes away.
Cappy and grady I don't know. I removed or replaced the long chemical names; but these two are geat simple words. Saying "this coffee is grady" is cool, saying it tastes like butyl mercaptofurene is ridiculous.
Heatgunroast Senior Member Joined: 10 Feb 2003 Posts: 357 Location: Los Angeles Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: La Spaziale Vivaldi II Grinder: Mazzer Mini; Zass Vac Pot: Royal Balance Brewer Drip: Various press and pour-overs Roaster: Heatgun, Dogbowl
Posted Wed May 28, 2003, 4:31pm Subject: Re: Talking about Coffee Taste
another_jim Said:
Rioy is an old coffee term meaning
Erpsig is German for peas-like, .
Cappy and grady . . . are geat simple words.
butyl mercaptofurene is ridiculous.
I am absolutely stupified! What started out to be just an average day (after two stunning shots of liquid amber), it turns out that I have some great new words. Words and coffee. Two of my favorites. And Jim, from you, even "butyl mercaptofurene" sounds cool.
limowreck Senior Member Joined: 28 May 2003 Posts: 2 Location: Los Angeles Expertise: Beginner
Posted Thu May 29, 2003, 3:30pm Subject: Re: Talking about Coffee Taste
I don't avoid talking about the flavor, but I do avoid the vocabulary.
It's not that I don't know it, but I feel like most people aren't familiar with the vocabulary. Using terms they are unfamiliar with in conversation would only alienate the people I want to share the experience with. What "average human being" wants to drink wine with a pro wine taster? Not me. I want to drink a tasty wine with friends and not get hung up on being snobby about the whole thing.
It is my hope that someday Folgers and Maxwell House will only be served at fundamentalist church meetings in Beavercreek, Ohio. I would like to see them whiped off the face of the earth (Folgers and Maxwell House I mean).
I feel like we need to bring more people into the highly misunderstood, but easily accessable world of exotic and gourmet coffees. I think if you make them feel less than qualified for the fine coffee experience they will revert back to Yuban with a shrug of the shoulders. Then we'd be right back at square one.
I don't mean to offend anyone... sure I talk snobby with people who I know are really "into" it, but, sadly, they are fairly rare.
jim_schulman Senior Member Joined: 19 Dec 2001 Posts: 3,772 Location: Chicago Expertise: I live coffee
Posted Thu May 29, 2003, 4:12pm Subject: Re: Talking about Coffee Taste
limowreck Said:
I feel like we need to bring more people into the highly misunderstood, but easily accessable world of exotic and gourmet coffees. I think if you make them feel less than qualified for the fine coffee experience they will revert back to Yuban with a shrug of the shoulders. Then we'd be right back at square one.
For most people, coffee is like muzak, they drink it while paying attention to something else. All they want is for the stuff to be inoffensive. Good coffee is worth attention; and "good coffee drinkers" pay attention.
I'm not a Zen monk, paying attention for me means thinking about what I'm tasting, trying to figure out why I like, what it reminds me of, etc. etc. That means being able to describe the coffee, and to answer why I liked it.
But paying attention is the important thing; if you do that without spinning your mental wheels, more power to you.
My only question is what do you say when someone asks you why it's worth paying attention to good coffee.
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