As you get further in your journey of improving your coffee skills and building more coffee knowledge, you learn to express your thoughts about coffee in a way that reflects your expertise.
If you’ve always wondered how coffee connoisseurs seem to know the exact terms or phrases to describe a cup, keep reading so that you can also learn how to refine your coffee language skills.
Why Is This Important?
Before you delve into the actionable steps, let’s understand why it is important.
Improving your coffee language skills helps to build confidence so you’re able to hold your own in coffee conversations.
It also enhances your ability to taste and appreciate coffee much more profoundly.
Build a Strong Sensory Foundation
Developing a taste for coffee is understanding and embracing all the sensory aspects of it. The mouthfeel, aroma, acidity, sweetness, bitterness, aftertaste, etc.
These categories lend depth to the cup and determine how one coffee is different from another.
As you keep trying different blends and single origins, observe how the coffee feels. Practice mindfully drinking coffee so you’re able to focus on each sip and note down sensory details.
In terms of aroma, learn how retronasal and orthonasal olfaction affect your perception of aroma.
Orthonasal has to do with the aroma that you sense through your nose (like from the pack of coffee beans or the aroma wafting from the cup). Retronasal aroma is sensed when you take a sip of the coffee, and the aroma travels through your mouth to the nasal cavity.
As for mouthfeel, you’d want to consider the body and texture of coffee. Does it feel gritty? Is it too watery?
Understand Industry Lingo
It’s one thing to be a home barista and engage with a few friends who love coffee, and a whole other ball game to be a part of the larger coffee community by interacting with industry folks.
If the latter is your goal, join events and network with roasters and baristas. You’ll gradually begin to pick up terms like extraction, dial-in, terroir, variety, balance, and so on.
It may seem like too much in the beginning, but you’ll get accustomed to it and eventually start feeling completely at home in a café, chatting with the barista about the beans they’re lately fascinated with.
You could even follow relevant YouTube channels and podcasts if you’d prefer to self-study to learn more industry-focused terms.
Build Vocabulary Step By Step
Building your coffee vocabulary comes with experience, and there’s no way around that.
To start small, use the descriptive words that come to mind at first to describe your cup of coffee. Even if all you can think of is “nutty” or “strong”, that’s okay.
Once you have observed a few points, refer to the Coffee Taster’s Flavour Wheel and narrow down the tasting notes further. Are you sensing almonds or maybe walnuts? Is it strong because it is heavy-bodied, or bitter, or does it just have a high-caffeine quotient?
Note down your thoughts in a journal so that you can refer to them later when you’re trying other coffee blends.
Comparative Tasting
At some point, you could also start including origin details to draw parallels. Perhaps the Brazilian coffee you tried had a distinct chocolatey flavour profile. One of your new favourites could be an Ethiopian that displays a bright, fruity acidity in the cup.
Once you’re ready to delve further, cup coffees side by side to identify tasting notes comparatively. You’ll soon be able to use comparative language (using phrases like “brighter than the Ethiopian single origin” or “earthy just like the Indian blend”) to describe coffees.
Ultimately, with months and months of practice, you’ll get to a place where you can replace vague descriptions like “strong” with specifics like “syrupy body”.
Don’t get too overwhelmed with learning and implementing the coffee vocabulary. It will naturally happen as your interest in coffee develops.
The key thing is to embrace curiosity and take small steps forward.
Depending on the people you’re talking to, you’ll also know when to get technical and when a conversational chat about coffee is best.
We hope this blog post is helpful to all those who want to express their love for coffee in an even more detailed manner!