Smell and Taste, Part 1: How to be a better coffee taster

So you’ve just taken a sip of a very rare coffee, and flavours of passion fruit explode in your mouth.

But here’s the thing: that flavour of passion fruit is not coming from your mouth. It’s not even coming from your nostrils. It’s being picked up behind your eyes!

In this first episode of The Science of Coffee's second series, I unravel how our sense of smell and taste works to help you be a better coffee taster.

I shrink us down microscopically and we dive into your tongue to show you why good black coffee tastes sweet, even though there’s no sugar in it.

We then travel up into our noses and get stuck in a lot of mucus. This slime might be disgusting, but we need it to be able to smell well.

And finally, with the help of tasting expert and author Mandy Naglich, I show you three effective ways you can train yourself to be a much better coffee taster without having to go on any expensive courses. The trick is to train our internal flavour prediction models!

This episode will help you deepen your appreciation of coffee and its delicious complexity.

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See Marco Beverage Systems' SP9 for yourself, and discover their range of consistent and energy-efficient coffee brewers for your cafe.

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Become a better coffee taster!
Pick up a copy of Mandy Naglich’s book “How To Taste”
Sign up for the Specialty Coffee Association’s Sensory Skills courses
Do an online sensory course with CoffeeMind

Connect with my very knowledgeable guests
Mandy Naglich - Instagram
Linda Bartoshuk - Website
Joel Mainland - LinkedIn
Fabiana Carvalho - Instagram
Janice Wang - LinkedIn
Peter Giuliano - LinkedIn
Bram De Hoog - Instagram

The Science of Coffee is made possible by these leading coffee organisations:
BWT Water and More
Marco Beverage Systems
ROEST
Sustainable Harvest
Mahlkönig

The Science of Coffee is a spin-off series from James Harper's documentary podcast Filter Stories