Stop Thinking About Tasting Notes. Start Thinking About Balance.

When we first learn coffee, one of the hardest things for many people to grasp is being able to make an accurate "call" on what we are tasting. Bags are noted with how a coffee "should taste," although repeating that in practice can be very difficult. I've seen many pro baristas "chase" tasting notes when dialing in a coffee, making adjustment after adjustment to try to achieve a given tasting note. And why not? They must be on that bag for a reason, right? Isn't that what defines a good palate? 

MY OWN INSECURITIES

I have always been a little insecure about my ability to perceive tasting notes in coffee. While I have developed understanding around taste and quantifying something that is totally subjective, it's still something that seems like a mystery on many days. I know when something is right, but I don't always feel confident about that "Gooseberry" or "Orange Blossom" flavor call when I fill out a cupping form. There is a simple reason for this: Like many people out there (70-80% of people, in fact), I have a deviated septum. This is a minor thing from a health point of view, but it ends up impacting one's ability to discern flavors as most of our taste sensations actually derive from our olfactory system (our nose) and not those taste buds we take so much pride in.

ONE REVELATORY MOMENT

But then something interesting happened years ago, I met a Chef who I thought was a genius and we got to talking coffee (we've since worked together in a few different ways) and I was amazed to learn that he is a Congenital Anosmic - essentially meaning he was born without a sense of smell.

This was absolutely incredible to me. This particular Chef, Adam Cole, and I got to talking about each of our processes - his in the kitchen and mine in coffee, and we were struck by the similarities of how we define quality. While I have had insecurity around my sense of smell, here was an accomplished person who was incredible in the kitchen, and he had no sense of smell at all! How could someone so talented as a Chef be missing this essential a component as a sense of smell and still produce food that would blow anyone away?

It occurred to me that we thought similarly in each of our respective fields. Adam would consider specific sensations that our taste buds can detect, namely the Acidity, the Texture / Mouthfeel, and the lingering sensations on his palate - such as mouth drying effects or the impact of salt. In essence - balance.

Adam was and is an incredibly studious person, and I have had the great pleasure of talking food science and having amazing books shared with me by him over the years. These include "On Food and Cooking” by Harold McGee among others, which I would recommend to anyone. While Adam couldn't taste what his guests were tasting, he understood that if there was true Balance between these key elements he could perceive, then it would only taste that much better to his guests.

COOKING MIRRORS COFFEE

I realized that I looked at coffee in exactly the same way. Acidity, Body, and Sweetness are 3 major characteristics that are easily discernible, whether or not we get any help from our ability to detect aroma. When those 3 elements of the cup are present, the result is Balance. The harmony of this experience is what keeps you coming back for more. This is different than Umami, this is a symphony of notes that transcend taste - and you know it when you experience it.

THE MANY MYSTERIES OF TASTING NOTES 

I have often found the idea of tasting notes in coffee to be a strange one. For one, they are based completely on one's own sensory memory. If you haven't tasted something, you are not going to identify that in your coffee tasting notes. Another question is if the coffee was ideally extracted? If it was Under or Over-Extracted, that will determine what you taste to a large degree. Under-Extracted coffees can taste more Citrus or Lemon forward for instance, which is true regardless of the coffee you brew, because Citric Acid extracts more quickly than others. Is that a true taste of the coffee, or an effect of its Extraction?

Now let's look at Water (or its Brewing Temperature) and the Mineral make-ups and how they impact taste. Hotter water can make a coffee taste "roasty" even if it isn't, and cooler water will not extract the most nuanced, volatile compounds that most discern Flavor. The taste of a given coffee will also change the further it is off-roast. 

How about other elements? For instance, what does a coffee taste like under pressure as in an espresso machine or through a gentle cold brew? Which "Taste" is more true? After all, these are molecules we are perceiving only because of this wild thermal expansion and release of steam that occurs when you roast coffee, also known as First Crack. If all of this is too much, don't worry as it's not the point of this piece.

JUST FOCUS ON BALANCE

What I'm really getting at is you should stop searching for tasting notes, instead focus on Balance in your brew, your roast profile, or coffee selection. Do the qualities of the coffee's acidity, its natural body and mouthfeel, its perceived sweetness and lingering sensations on the palate - are those in Balance?

If they are, you have a beautiful cup of coffee. Then, and only then, should you attempt to give the coffee a tasting note, based on how that tastes TO YOU, in that given moment based on those given conditions. Palate development does not mean being able to name every possible tasting note and feeling insecure if you are not getting the same "blueberry" note a friend of yours gets with the same coffee. Just ask yourself if this coffee has Balance, both in its inherent qualites as well as in how you approach brewing or roasting it.

If you can do this, anyone that tastes coffee you produce will be wowed. If they perceive an explosion of "tastes," then feel happy for them. 

The coffee is the coffee, no mater how it is prepared. The nature of the Coffee you are brewing is already determined in its attributes - its variety, how ripe it was when being picked, the style of processing / fermentation was used, how far it is off-harvest, how this particular roaster had chosen to roast it. Whatever it is, it already is. The question is, which of its attributes will you be highlighting when you brew it?

THE BIG IDEA

As a barista or home brewer, your job is to make it taste as great as it can taste, or to buy a coffee with these inherent traits in Balance with one another. If you do, then glorious mornings await your daily routine - as does anyone you have the pleasure of sharing that coffee with. 

I think this is not only a great metaphor for living, it is also a practice applicable in a wide variety of disciplines - as I discovered most acutely learning from Chef Adam in the context of cooking. You can apply this principle to any craft and you are likely to have a better end result. We often determine our happiness by considering how our work and play are in some sort of equilibrium, not to mention the well-being of our own bodies. Consider this the next time you are tasting a coffee at a shop, deciding which beans to buy, or making adjustments to your dial in. 

Think about Balance.