Sensory Skills in Coffee and tips to improving it

After completing the brew, the barista then says “Here’s your cup of freshly brewed coffee. You should be able to detect nutmeg, plum and black tea as you let it sits in your tounge for awhile. It has a short, pleasant finish.” You then sit there wondering how can nutmeg, plum and black tea can be detected in a cup of black coffee.

This is called Sensory. A skill that coffee professionals has and practises daily. It is a skill set that is essential to identifying, recognising balanced coffee and understanding what coffee should taste like. In fact this skill is so specialised that recently Malaysia Specialty Association has just got the approval to run a National Cup Tasters Champion where professionals are required to taste over 10 coffees in order to assess their skillset of identifying coffee from other regions.

But do not let this hold you back, in fact anyone can also taste coffee. There are more than one ways to improve your sensory skill and increase your capability in Olfaction, Gustation and Taction, here are few ways to do it:-

• Practice smelling and tasting on a light or empty stomach. It may sound crazy to practice drinking coffee in an empty stomach, but a full stomach dulls the senses.
• If you’re going to practice your senses, practice in the morning. By night time, your body and senses are tired, hence it will be less sensitive to sense the flavour note.
• Get a good night's sleep. Make sure you’re not feeling sick, otherwise sickness often leads to dulled senses.
• Avoid drinking too much coffee before the sensory work. Do you know that the more caffeine you consume, the less sensitive you are to the next cup of coffee? This is because your palate and tongue will be more and more fatigued.
• Avoid lotions or perfumes. Make sure the room you’re in, is smell-free!
• Learn to attend to your senses all day long. As you go through your day, create a “file” or “catalogue” in your brain, save all the fragrances and aromas you’ve taste or smell.
• Use a Flavour Wheel. Flavour wheel is like a dictionary when you learn new words, it is super useful. Work from the general section to specific (from the inside of the wheel to the outside of the wheel). For example, when a coffee smells sweet, what kind of sweetness it is? Is it floral? Or chocolate? Or fruit sweetness? If you identity it as fruit, then start looking at outside of the wheel, what kind of fruits does it taste like? Is it tropical fruit? Or citrus fruit? Let’s say it taste like citrus fruit sweetness, then you can start focusing on the outer part of the wheel and more for the specific flavor note.

Last but not least, HAVE FUN AND DRINK MORE COFFEE! Don’t compare yourself to the pros and knock yourself out and it is very important to drink different types of coffee from different region or different roasting profile. As a starter point, here's a promo code that you can purchase 3 types of coffee that is roasted differently. Shop at degayocoffee.com and use promo code: FREEDELIVERY