Hi.

I know that it is very difficult to convey or translate a flavor in to words using language. But my interest has another more philosophical aspect. Lets say that there is a room with only two people cupping, and they are asked to come up with the names of the flavors that the coffee evoke. Lets say that they come up with 10 names in 5 minutes. If we were to do the same but with 50 people instead of two, we could get 30, 40 or 50 different names that describe the same coffee. Same of the names will be "closer" than the others to the real thing. Some of the names will be prettier, some more elegant, sophisticated, etc.

Now. Descriptions of flavors are made with words. Words become thoughts. Here comes the philosophical part. A thought is real even when its subject is unreal. For example. A thought of a unicorn is real even when there are no unicorns. If we apply this to coffee flavors, many of the results of the descriptions fall in the category of unicorns. They did not exist until someone thought them out. Its creation was based on an idea and a thought. Once created, one can find some similarity using imagination and say, hey I can see it too! But before the idea was transmitted, there was nothing.

The question is, how many of the coffee descriptions are unicorns?

Cheers

In many cases, "Now I can taste it too" is not a unicorn; it's learning. For instance, to a medical student, an X-ray looks like random blobs. After while, they learn to see the tumors. The tumors kill people even if the med student sees only blobs.

The elusiveness of coffee and other tastes does not lie in it being a taste, or in it being subjective, or in us lacking the words; but in it having no long term consequence beyond the immediate experience. When taste was about discriminating food from poison, it was a lot like the X-ray, and the "now I taste it too" kept people alive.

The best way to learn the realities of taste is to create some consequences. I don't mean poisoning the Sumatra, although that would certainly make its mushroom flavors less imaginary. Instead, I mean linking tastes to controlling actions. You learn to taste "acidity" by doing lighter roasts and faster flowing brews, "bitter" by darker roasts and slower pulls, "more mellow and integrated" by slower roasts and lower doses. etc. etc. You learn to the difference between "Kenya" and 'Costa Rica" by cupping a lot of each coffee from each origin*. Once you can vary the tastes of coffee in a predictable fashion, according to how you select, roast and brew it, the whole subject becomes a lot less mysterious.

At that point, the true miracle of exceptional coffees, which is beyond anyone's control, becomes clear. For this, words become more like variations on oh! and ah!, rather than descriptions. So while the descriptions of, say, a great Yrg, is poetic, the greatness itself is real enough to keep all of us coming back for more.

*Miguel Meza thinks these characteristic regional tastes are often the result of manipulation rather than terroir, created by processing variations. Stay tuned for some interesting "Kenyas," "Sumatras" and "Sidamos" coming from Kona.

Arpi wrote:The question is, how many of the coffee descriptions are unicorns?

This is a great topic! What you're asking about relates to phenomenology. You can read-up on phenomenology on the ol' Wikipedia.

I met someone last year who wrote a paper called "The Phenomenology of Coffee Tasting." I'll find out if it's something that he feels comfortable with me sharing. Send me a PM with your email address and I'll see if I could shoot you a copy. If you're interested.

The same situation occurs in the wine industry. A search for vocabulary that will convey real information often goes overboard. Many years ago I took an intensive sommelier class.

One technique that we used was "component tasting"; we had a case of more than 100 glass vials with smells ranging from blue berries to dirty diapers. (cigar ash, cigarette ash, coffee, leather etc etc.)

This exercise did help sharpen our taste (actually much of wine is about smell, not taste), but ultimately for me it was mostly useful in detecting and identifying defects, not virtues. If someone says the coffee tastes like an armpit smells, that says something. But a long list of floral descriptors for me is kind of annoying and doesn't tell me what what I really want to know: Do I want to drink a second sip? And a third? Should I drink that third shot because not to would be a crime?

Arpi wrote:The question is, how many of the coffee descriptions are unicorns?

Cheers

Are not all descriptions unicorns? All perceptions are by definition subjective.

If I am understanding correctly what you are getting at, then this is not about coffee in particular, this is about language, and assigning sounds to shapes and linking those shapes together and assigning meaning to them and calling them words. And deeper still it is about individuals' interpretation of stimuli. Without getting too in-depth and potentially getting caught in a paradox, I'll say this: I taste a blueberry (who says what a "blueberry" is? Well it's those little blue... Who says what "blue"... You get the point), you taste a blueberry. We both have tasted the same thing. Though our brains may not interpret the flavor exactly the same, thus not sharing the exact same experience, we have established a constant, a control. Now when anyone who has tasted a blueberry tastes a coffee with strong notes of blueberry, they can describe it by that taste. It is not a flavor we assigned to a word like a name we assigned to an image (a unicorn), it is a flavor assigned to an object by Something and in the end we just assigned a sound for it to represent it verbally. You can also say the same for feelings such as "dry" or "heavy" or "smooth." Unless you are describing your coffee with words like "beautiful" or "depressing" or other abstracts, then any experienced taster can come up with mostly the same results and possibly when prompted can "see that too," not because it is imaginary and awaiting assignment of meaning to exist, but because you just didn't notice it at first like the tiny seeds inside a blueberry until tipped off to look for them, and when you did, you realized their reality and by that you now have faith they must have always been there... If not, then they only came into existence upon your "discovery," a tree that falls in the forest makes no sound if no one is there to hear it, the world cannot exist without you, reality is as real as Fuzzy Wuzzy's hair, and you are your own imagination and everything is meaningless, utterly meaningless. Now think about that over your morning cup

another_jim wrote:In many cases, "Now I can taste it too" is not a unicorn; it's learning. For instance, to a medical student, an X-ray looks like random blobs. After while, they learn to see the tumors. The tumors kill people even if the med student sees only blobs.

I agree about the value of language being a positive tool. If it wasn't for metaphors (which are not "real"), we would not be were we are. Things, even if they are not physical, can have a great practical value. One example could be numbers. They are "imaginary" but they are used every day and save lives.

Cheers

Nick wrote:This is a great topic! What you're asking about relates to phenomenology. You can read-up on phenomenology on the ol' Wikipedia.

Thanks for the interesting link. This line caught my eye.

"reality cannot be grasped directly because it is available only through perceptions of reality which are representations of it in the mind."

Assuming that we could apply this to coffee, by changing the word reality for flavor, then coffee descriptions would help guide the representation of flavors in the mind towards a destination (the real representation). But how would you know if the "directions" given by the words take you to a more real representation, when there is no point of reference and flavors seem virtual mental constructions?

Cheers

I spotted one of those mythical coffee unicorns the other day on Twitter, though I think it's rather tongue in cheek.

@hasbean wrote:
Ok so strawberry angel delight is a new descriptor for me but this Nicaraguan is pure angel delight

Is this what your talking about?

This whole post is reminding me of Plato's Allegory of the Cave and his theory of forms.

Well not only that, but would you taste what you tasted have you not read what you are supposed to taste?