Astringency and sweetness are two very important sensations when it comes to coffee, let’s dive in and find out why is it so!
We want to share more and more knowledge about coffee with you. So here we are again to learn even more about the fundamental elements to consider when tasting a coffee! You already know about: body, aroma and roundness. What about we tell you something about two other very significant elements: sweetness and astringency?
Astringency: what it means in coffee
You will feel a sense of astringency when the tannins in your coffee affect the production of a specific protein in your saliva, causing a sense of poor lubrication and higher thickness. The sensation you have with astringency is as if your tastebuds were shrinking. If you can’t figure this sensation, think about eating a very undercooked artichoke, and here’s the feeling!
You detect astringency through your sense of touch and taste, and it is usually accompanied by mellowness and coarseness. In a few words, “coarseness” is, similarly to astringency, due to a lack of lubricity in your mouth, which will produce some sort of sour taste. This sensation is usually taken as in indication of a poor-quality coffee, even though that might be not true in some cases.
Mellowness, on the contrary, is a pleasant tactile feeling, that is related to the presence of oily elements in the coffee. Mellowness is wound down by sour/bitter elements present in the coffee itself.
So, when can you feel confident you are tasting an excellent espresso? It happens when you experience mellowness and a creamy but not-to-thick and not-too-liquid sensation by sipping your coffee. Also, looking back to what we learned about aroma, remember that all the aromas and flavours need to be balanced when appreciating the smell and taste.
It’s common knowledge that we have two kinds of coffee: Robusta and Arabica. Arabica beans generate a coffee that is kind of oily, somehow acid (but in a pleasant way), sweet and has a light body. On the contrary, by using Robusta you’ll have a more robust (please appreciate the wordplay) bitterer and full body coffee. For these reasons, you’ll have a coffee that is creamier and thick by using Arabica rather than Robusta.
Sweetness: what it means in coffee
As you might guess, sweetness is about that pleasant and sweet taste you get by sipping a coffee. Meanwhile Arabica variety is more sugary and therefore sweeter, Robusta is way less sweet.
Fruitiness is what will make you define a coffee as sweet. It basically refers to the high amount of sugars you can appreciate in a coffee tasting.
Just like many other elements we analysed already, sweetness has a great relevance when assessing the grade of a coffee. Roasting affects the amount the sweet part you will find in a coffee. If it the process is too harsh, it could make the sweetness go away. For this reason, we don’t push our roasting procedures too much, so we can keep the desired level of sweetness for it to be harmonious with other elements like bitter and more acid notes.
