Taste, or How the Tongue Map is a Myth
I wouldn’t be surprised if many of you are familiar with the diagram of a generic tongue that locates the “sweet” oriented taste buds near the tip of the tongue, followed by the sides which are said to detect “salt” flavors, followed by the “sour” taste buds and finally the “bitter” taste buds located in the rear just before everything drops down your throat.
Unfortunately, this “map” of the taste receptors of the tongue is flawed and proven to be inaccurate. Each taste bud is capable of experiencing all these sensations and there is no meaningful reason to associate a particular sensation to a part of the tongue (put sugar on the back of your tongue and you should be able to taste sweetness in the “bitter” region with no problem). Textbooks still publish this tongue map, although the reason for doing so is unclear.
What does this have to do with cupping coffee?
When it comes to the taste of coffee, it is important to remember that the whole tongue is a sensory organ for the experience, along with the olfactory influences (our friend, aroma). That said, we should include the whole tongue and the nose when tasting coffee.
The best way to taste coffee for cupping purposes is to slurp your coffee. Noisy as it may be, the preferred method is to get your nose down into the cup you intend to taste and, ignoring your mother’s admonishment to not slurp your food, suck in a small quantity of the coffee liquor. The coffee should spread across the whole tongue and allow all sorts of happy taste receptors to experience and analyze the coffee.
While the same thing can be said for tasting coffee as describing the aroma (with respect to “right” and “wrong” adjectives and the use of creativity), there are a few more common words that people use to describe the sensations experienced when drinking coffee. I encourage you to experiment beyond the following terms, but they are universal enough to bear worth mentioning.
Acidity is the sharpness of the taste, generally pleasing to the drinker. It shouldn’t be confused with sourness, which is often less desirable. Acidity is the level “tartness” you experience when drinking coffee. I find acidity to be a rather nebulous word and I don’t know that there is meaningful agreement amongst coffee drinkers as to the word’s actual meaning with respect to coffee as I’ve heard the term bandied about indiscriminately and I prefer to avoid this particular word.
Bitterness is what most people taste when they drink their cup of morning brew. Generally, although not always, the degree of bitterness often corresponds to the darkness of the roast. The rocket fuel has a higher level of bitterness compared to the canned coffee you drank at church potlucks growing up as a kid.
Sweetness is associated with the “chocolate”, “fruit” and even “nutty” flavors you discern in a cup of coffee. Sweetness is the flavor characteristic that smooths out the high bitterness of a cup of coffee.
Saltiness is the flavor of, well, salt. Coffee shouldn’t be salty tasting, generally, and is indicative of less than ideal processing or handling of the beans either before or after roasting.
Sourness is the vinegary, unpleasant, sometimes fermented taste associated with some coffees. While some coffees are known for their sour cherry overtones, sourness is not generally considered a desirable attribute when drinking coffee. The flavor being experienced is more likely a tartness, rather than sour, that people are describing.
Please note how this list corresponds with the tongue map… I think it would interesting to move beyond these basic flavor descriptors and consider new paradigms for describing the tastes of any food, much less coffee. It may be beneficial to take some lessons away from amateur wine tastings and attempt to describe the flavors more in accord with similarities to dissimilar foods than using the generic list above. The word “chocolaty” means much more to many people than “slightly bitter, with a touch of sweetness”.
The taste of coffee can be further divided by the time-line of experience. The flavors you encounter while tasting most coffee will vary from the initial taste as the coffee enters your mouth to the taste you experience as the coffee sits on your tongue to the flavor of the “finish”, or aftertaste, after you have swallowed the coffee. While hardcore tasters will try to define each of these stages of the experience, I encourage folks to worry more about the overall lasting impression. This overall impression helps you define what it is that you like about the flavors and aromas of a particular roast/varietal of coffee bean.
Remember, cupping is supposed to be fun and provide you with information to better find other coffees that you’ll like — its not necessarily a competition or for judging the merits of a coffee.
Next: The Art of Cupping, Part IV: Mouthfeel and Body / Conclusion
Related Articles:
The Art of Cupping, Part I: Whats and Wherefores
The Art of Cupping, Part II: Aroma
The Art of Cupping, Part IV: Mouthfeel and Body / Conclusion
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