Wescott wrote:One more thing worth mentioning is that there are large individual differences in tastes and smells that people can discriminate. Some of these differences (not very useful ones) have proven to be outright genetic, and they are permanent abilities/disabilities. Others may be starting points from which one can develop.
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Should we abandon talking about flavors then? No! It's too much fun and can be part of the suggestive apparatus that will lead us to some discovery. Things don't have to be objective to be worthwhile.

True enough that some people have greater tasting abilities than others. But this doesn't make the flavor compounds subjective. The compounds are present; some people can taste them and others cannot. But often it's the preparation and not the tongue that is responsible for one person's delight and another's shrug.

On a related, if somewhat belated, note:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/techn ... 2ring.html

True. I've always known I've been more visually sensitive than anything else. I'm a visual learner, I'm in visual arts, I'm attracted to hot women, etc. So my super powers may not include Radioactive-Man taste buds, oh well. I'll stick with the other genetic gift bestowed upon the males in my family. No, I wasn't talking about THAT! My father, brother, and I have never experienced a headache.

The ability to describe tastes is different from the ability to discriminate them. I know lots of people who are better than me at discriminating tastes, but who have trouble describing them (especially when I'm babbling on).

One thing I haven't seen described in any literature is tests for taste memory. The basic one is really simple:
-- give somebody a sample to taste
-- a few hours to a day later, give them three or more different blind samples, and have them pick the one they had before.
-- grade the blind samples by how difficult they are to tell apart from the original in a regular triangle test.

I'm curious if having good taste memory correlates better to the raw ability to discriminate tastes, or to the ability to describe them.

Artificial vanilla, you know where that comes from? Wood, but it still tastes like vanilla. That is why a lot of bourbon has a vanilla note. When the oak casks get their char, the sugars in the oak (trees basically live on sugar water, sap) the sugars caramelize and create a vanilla flavor in the metamorphoses.

Coffee is the same way, flavors emerge through the roasting process even though there is none of that flavors source used in the roasting of the coffee. i.e. no blueberries, peaches, chocolate, marzipan, nut, it just happens. Also keep in mind that some people have uber tongues or they have trained themselves to pick up on the subtle notes. I know a guy that can drink folders from the store and the best Africa has to offer, and all he tastes is coffee, nothing more. I smoke a good cigar and taste leather, coffee, spice but there is nothing but whole leaf tobacco in there that has been aged and prepared by a master blender.

There is also the marketing factor. Would you order a coffee if the roasters description of the blend simply said, tastes of coffee?

Greetings,

Below are descriptions of what the coffee should taste like after I have roasted the beans. These are the vendors words not mine. I think my taste buds are dead or I've received the wrong beans. I've never come close to tasting what is on the label.

Cliff

A classic, bright, clean Costa Rica cup; sweet orangey citrus character, chocolate milk and cocoa powder sweet scents, hazelnut roast taste, citrus peel aftertaste, silky light body, elegantly simple.
At lighter roasts it has dynamic fruited flavors (peach, dried apricot, mango, melon), and intense chocolate at darker roasts. Mild acidity, heavy body.

complex and unique flavor profile, with Saison beer notes, malt, mulling spice, raisin, chocolate, opaque body, sage.

Complex flavor profile, unique Pacamara cultivar influence, with molasses, raisin, plum, cinnamon stick, foresty hints, sweetened rhubarb and strawberry.

Dark brown sugar with concord grape, fresh black fig and raisin. Low acidity level, medium body. Black pepper finish with mild tannic aftertaste. Dark fruited sweetness is the primary cup flavor.

tasting notes for green coffee are "potential" at best and straight up marketing at worst.
the same green roasted to the exact same roast level, on different roasters running different profiles (with different drop temps and different batch sizes) will taste different.

There seems to be no consensus on this subject, but in my experience with La Peppina and Caravel (lever machines with non-pressurized kettles instead of pressurized boilers, and so machines where the barista can control the brew temperature and, in the Caravel's case, the brew pressure as well) a difference of only a couple of degrees can enhance, subdue, or totally mute flavors.

So, I underscore that what the OP called "fancy" flavors are not only dependent on the tongue of the taster but on how the bean was prepared: i.e. on the particulars of the roast and the particulars of the extraction. As important as brew temperature can be, however, the depth of the roast, IMO, has much more effect than the nuances of water temperature on which flavors are present in the cup.

Roasters who do a true light roast ( <= City) are few and far between. Even my mainstays for light roasts are going darker: Full City has become "light roast". Not that I dislike dark roasts; I simply like a wide range of choice.

The glaringly obvious flavor you could get anyone to recognize is blueberry. I'd have to work hard to kill off the blueberry in Ethiopia Idido Misty Valley, it's just so damn prominent. My wife hates straight espresso, it's all straight ass to her. I pulled an Idido shot, and was so excited I made her taste it. Her eyebrows shot up: "OMG, it's blueberry. And it's not bad." You can smell it in the whole beans, ground, espresso, drip, pervasive.

She did the same with a Nicaragua: "Apricot!"

Fun!

poison wrote:The glaringly obvious flavor you could get anyone to recognize

There's that coffee-lingo-synesthesia again.

I just made a wonderful brewed Ethiopian, definite blueberry.

I had my wife try some. She thinks it tasted of burnt wood.
Just remember, she likes instant Sanka.