You don't need an official Q-Grader certification to start tasting coffee like a pro.
Seth Taylor breaks down palate improvement to start noticing the subtle nuances between flavour notes:
1. Be Conscious About Everything You Eat
If you want to have a better palate, forget about coffee for a moment. You need to be conscious about what you're putting in your mouth, and then put everything in your mouth. Try everything. Don't be afraid of new things. But the trick is, when you eat something, be conscious about it, and pay attention to it. You can't just eat, then forget about it. Anything you’re tasting, whether it's new or old to you, take two seconds and really think about what it tastes like. Think about its sweetness, acidity, bitterness, saltiness, or how much umami flavour it has.
2. Start With Natural Processed Coffees
Most people I know have their first revelatory coffee-tasting moment when they drink a naturally processed coffee, and that's simply because the flavours in these coffees are typically quite intense and fruity. Most coffees boast typical tasting notes of chocolate or nuts, but fruity notes, like raspberry or blueberry, can come as a surprise to many! Surprise is one of the best ways to sharpen your palate. When something tastes different from what you expect, you become far more attentive to the flavours in front of you.
3. Use Your Skin to Reset Your Sense of Smell
Unlike your other senses, smell goes directly into your brain unfiltered. It's one of the strongest triggers for memory, but ironically, it's also the sense your brain adapts to most quickly. This makes it difficult to differentiate between aromas when you're trying to compare them. So, here's a trick: Human skin generally has a neutral smell and you can use it to reset your sense of smell. If you want to hone in on the aromatics of a particular cup, reset your nose by intermittently smelling your own skin. Most people smell their inner forearm.
4. Taste Multiple Things Side-by-Side
If you want to get exceptionally good at tasting, it’s helpful to be able to pick apart subtle flavour differences. For example, if you want to attribute a coffee tasting note as Granny Smith apple as opposed to Honey Crisp or Macintosh, you would have to understand the subtle and nuanced differences between them. Next time you’re at the grocery store, buy different varieties of the same fruit to experiment with! Taste them side-by-side, so you can get better at comparing and contrasting between them.
Save this for your next tasting, and thank Seth when your coffee suddenly gets a lot more interesting!
