Transcription
What does a great cup of coffee taste like? This might seem like a strange question, but it's one a surprising number of people ask me. They hear other people talking about these incredible cups of coffee and they can't help but wonder, "Is what I'm drinking great?" I mean, they may be enjoying it, but they're kind of haunted by the idea that it could be better, and if it could, how would they know?
This is something of an abstract question, and that is exactly how we're gonna answer it. See, fortunately for us, great coffee has some commonalities, and I wanna start with excellence as a kind of comparative idea against a kind of baseline of preference. Now, for many of us, our base preferences of coffee are set with cups just like this one. Thank you. Some people might start with instant, some with specialty, but I think the first coffee you drink regularly is a kind of formative experience. This, a little bitter, better with something to smooth it out, but still enjoyable as part of a wider experience. Satisfying. How does it taste? It just tastes like coffee. To describe it any other way seems frankly ridiculous and a little bit pretentious, but it's a kind of beginning of a journey into coffee.
Now though, I wanna convince you of something. I wanna convince you that coffee tastes like music. You see, coffee has these intense tastes; it has bitterness, it has a little natural sweetness. It has some acidity too, but when they blend well together, they are harmonious. Now, right now music is playing, and you're hearing... music. Yeah, if you wanted to, you could pick out the cello from the violin, but they blend so well together. But if the balance is off, if one instrument is too loud, or the tone's not right, or something's a bit off, very quickly, it is distracting and unpleasant. It's more than just the music, the harmony, the melodies; balance is so important too. With great coffee, you shouldn't really notice the instruments unless you want to. You should just be enjoying the music.
"A-ha," you say, "there's a problem here. You can't be claiming that every great cup of coffee has the same balance of acidity and sweetness," and you're quite right. Take the orange. This has a very different acidity and sweetness to, say, an apple. But what makes them both so delicious when they're perfectly ripe is that balance of acidity and sweetness. Right next to the idea of balance is the idea of mouthfeel. It's a peculiar word we use to describe the texture or the tactile feel. How should wonderful coffee feel to drink? It might be light and bright and delicate and tea-like and fleeting, or it might be rich and full and creamy, heavy and lingering. There's a spectrum here, and great coffee exists, I think, right across it. Easier perhaps to say what great coffee isn't. It has no edges, it has no harshness or abrasiveness. It should simply feel really good to drink.
But next to that, there's another idea. It's a little intangible still, but I think it's really important in the world of great coffee. It's the idea of clarity. Slide, please. We've all probably had cups of coffee like this. The flavours are blurry, muddy, hard to discern. Slide please. With better brewing comes a bit more clarity. It goes from a mush of red to being like, "Oh yeah, it's like maybe fruity?" Slide, please. Great coffee has this clarity of flavour that's just lovely. It's not that you'll be instantly able to describe it, pick the right word. That takes time, that takes effort, but the flavours will seem crisp and clear, and it will have a kind of character that makes it extremely enjoyable.
But I wanna stay with flavour and take you to a different place. I wanna take you to somewhere inside your head: to this. The olfactory bulb, the place that I would argue flavour is created. You see, aromas in coffee, well, they're just volatile organic compounds. They're bits of chemistry floating around in the air. It's not until they meet the olfactory bulb and, together with your brain, are they conjured into the sensation of flavour for your consciousness. It's a magical moment, not just because it's special, but because, well, there's a little bit of trickery in there too. You see, coffee has almost too many flavours, too many aromas, and your brain has to pick some to build a picture and throw some others away. It's used to doing this. Your brain is constantly taking in information, throwing some out. You want an example? Well, this is only true until I say it. You can't feel your feet. Of course, you can always feel them. They were never numb, but you just simply weren't aware of them in that moment. Your brain took the information in, didn't consider it important enough for your consciousness, sort of threw it out.
In coffee, it's slightly different. It's looking for cues and clues to build a picture of flavour, and it will do so in a unique way to you. It might take the color of the cup that you're drinking from. It might take, let's say, the kind of acidity that you're experiencing in the coffee, other experiences from your past, and so the picture that it builds of flavour is kind of unique to you. So you give two people the same cup of coffee, and their brains will build two different pictures. They'll experience two different things. I think it's why we struggle to agree so often, and what I like may be different to what you like. When it comes to flavour, it's important to know that your preferences are immune from criticism.
There are two emotions I want to talk about now though, the first of which is sadness. It's that moment at the end of a cup of coffee, you go for one more sip and it's finished, and your brain's like, "Hey, I was drinking that! I'm not ready to be done yet." It's such a lovely moment of sadness. It's beautiful because it ends. Great coffee should leave you wanting more, not worrying about what you should eat or drink to get rid of the sensation in your mouth. The other emotion, the other feeling is one that's kept coffee very compelling to me in the last 20 years. It's anticipation. You see, every night, every single night I get into bed, looking forward to making and drinking some potentially great coffee in the morning. Great coffee's worth chasing. It's this wondrous little thing you can just sprinkle into your everyday life for a little bit more joy. I'll say goodnight. I hope your coffee is great. I'll say thank you so much for watching, and I hope you have a great day.