MediumRoastSteam I do wonder how many of us here can pick most of the tasting notes.
Thousands of people participated in James Hoffmann’s World Tasting Event. Coffees were purposely picked to showcase and educated. Sachets of Third World Water were included in the pack so everyone has the same water. Brew method was cupping. Tasting was done over an hour, with clean spoons, while the coffees cools down. Everything was aimed at spotting the flavours of the coffees. And yet, accept for one or maybe two notes that were very prominent and were picked by many, most things that were picked up were very general (fermented, acidic). There was usually no consensus at all over specific notes such as we often see on bags (rum, honeysuckle, strawberry-banana roulade with a lemon-Drambuie drizzle…).
My understanding and conclusion, both from my own experience and from what I have read from other people, is that those overly specific notes are generally marketing, designed to draw the finger to the “Place Order” button. The people writing those notes might be trained super-tasters that do this every day for a living, but I still doubt if they were tasted by different experts they would still come up with the same specific notes as each other.
If we see those notes on the bag and have a lot of motivation to think we pick them up, our brains might happily go along and tell us that we tasted them. If anyone thinks they do, there is an easy way to check: drink a coffee without knowing what’s written on the bag and see if this still works. I will have to see it to believe it.
