Me and my team did it to inspire and, more importantly, to create the tactics and details around how you, your organization, your startup  can know more about start working on coffee business.

However this deck continues my tradition of training step-by-step guides that give you the exact information I’ve used to run my introduction to coffee class. That includes references like :

The post Introduction to coffee presentation appeared first on Maillardreaction.org.

The main topic that we’ll be discussing today are the papillae of the tongue, the innervation of the tongue, and the neural pathways to the brain. We’ll also be looking at the roles of the other sensations of touch, temperature and pain and smell with regards to how we taste our food. And towards. Therefore, our main and learning point for today are what senses are involved in taste, where taste is sensed, where it is processed within the brain, and how the taste signals are transmitted from the sensory organ to the brain.

overview

So, taste is a really interesting sense as it is the interaction of several specific signals. There are four of these and they include the gustatory or taste signals from gustatory cells on the taste buds, touch signals – in other words. Information on texture from mechanoreceptors in the oral cavity and this is sometimes referred to as mouth feel. Temperature and pain signals from bare nerve endings in the oral cavity are also provided. Olfactory or smell signals from the olfactory epithelium of the cribriform plate in the nasal cavity is our fourth and last signal. There are also some accessory structures assisting with detection of taste which we’ll talk about a little bit later. But, first, let’s have a look at the gustatory signaling pathway.

gustatory information

is detected by chemoreceptors on taste buds. Taste buds exist on taste papillae in the oral cavity and gustatory sensation is transmitted through three cranial nerves – the facial nerve, cranial nerve seven; the glossopharyngeal nerve, cranial nerve nine; and the vagus nerve, cranial nerve ten. Through these nerves, signals reach the brainstem where they synapse and are relayed to three main areas of the brain, and we’re going to go through these now in a little bit more detail.

most lingual papillae are on the upper surface of the tongue, however, there are also some papillae hanging out on the soft palate, the upper esophagus and on the epiglottis. There are a few different shapes of papillae found on different areas of the tongue and we’re going to go through them now, but keep in mind there’s essentially four different types of papillae and these are the vallate papillae, the fungiform papillae, the foliate papillae, and the filiform papillae. Just before we move on to talk about each of these papillae, I just wanted you to note that the filiform papillae do not contain taste buds and rather are accessory structures so we’ll talk about them a little bit later.

papillae

we’re going to get on to the papillae that are involved in gustatory signaling starting with the vallate papillae. Vallate papillae, also known as circumvallate papillae are arranged in a V-shape with the point of the V towards the throat as you can see on the diagram. They’re located immediately anterior to the terminal sulcus which divides the tongue into its anterior two-thirds – that is the body of the tongue – and posterior one third which is the root of the tongue. And there are only seven to twelve vallate papillae on the tongue but each papilla has several thousand taste buds around its base.

vallate papilla

is described as an inverted frustum shape which is a cone with the pointy top chopped off. And to show you this a little bit more clearly, let’s consider another diagram which we’re going to bring in right now. So, this is a close-up view of the dorsal surface of the tongue showing the different papillae, and as you can see the vallate papillae are highlighted. They have a moat-like structure around them which allows better clearance of detected taste stimuli from the taste buds at the base of the papillae. And, actually, the moat-like structure is where the name of these papillae is derived from. So the word “vallate” comes from the Latin which means surrounded by a wall.

we can also see a number of von Ebner’s glands, and these are minor salivary glands which secrete saliva around the base of the vallate papillae that’s helping to clear taste particles from the taste bud receptors. The glossopharyngeal nerve is the nerve that is responsible for taking the taste signals from these taste buds.

fungiform papillae

are the most common papillae found on the tongue with two hundred to four of them spread across the anterior two-thirds of the tongue but concentrated around the edge as demonstrated on the image. So, they’re termed fungiform as they are mushroom-shaped which is best displayed here, and as you can see, there are three to five taste buds per papilla highlighted here, and the facial nerve is the nerve that carries gustatory information from these taste buds back to the brain.

The final type of taste papillae that we’re going to talk about today are the foliate papillae. As you can see, these are ridge-like folds situated at the edge of the tongue towards the back of the oral cavity, and we have around about twenty foliate papillae in total with each papilla having several hundred taste buds. The more anterior foliate papillae are innervated by the facial nerve whilst the more posterior papillae send taste signals through the glossopharyngeal nerve.

nerves

you would have noticed that there are three nerves involved in gustation. Number one, the facial nerve; number two, the glossopharyngeal; and number three, the vagus nerve. So, we’ll follow taste sensations being picked up in the tongue along each nerve to their synapse in the brainstem and then we’ll talk about their common central pathway. And in the course of the following discussion, we’ll also talk about some ganglia.

Before we go on to talk about the ganglia though, you might be wondering what a ganglion is, so we’ll briefly talk through it right now. So, a ganglion is a collection of nerve cell bodies and these arise at specific anatomical locations throughout the body, and as you can see in the diagram, the ganglia of the taste pathway are highlighted and these are the otic ganglion, the geniculate ganglion, the pterygopalatine ganglion, the petrosal ganglion, and the nodose ganglion. So, let’s move on now to the nerves.

ganglia

The facial nerve is otherwise known as cranial nerve seven and taste from the anterior two-thirds of the tongue is transmitted into the chorda tympani which is a sensory branch of the facial nerve and this nerve passes into the middle ear and crosses the tympanic membrane. A variable degree of taste information can bypass the middle ear via the otic ganglion to hitch a ride on the greater petrosal nerve, and the chorda tympani and the greater petrosal nerve converge at the geniculate ganglion.

Taste from the palate travels along the greater petrosal nerve via the pterygopalatine ganglion where it communicates with the trigeminal nerve. After the convergence of the geniculate ganglion, the afferent fibers form the intermediate nerve which runs alongside but separate to the facial nerve proper. And both of these branches travel in the internal auditory meatus with the vestibulocochlear nerve and do note that the gustatory fibers of the intermediate nerve synapse in the rostral solitary nucleus. The rostral solitary nucleus is synonymous with the gustatory nucleus.

glossopharyngeal nerve

The glossopharyngeal nerve which is our cranial nerve nine is very important in this tutorial because it’s responsible for the majority of taste sensation. This is because it innervates the posterior third of the tongue including the vallate papillae which, if you remember back to our previous slides, house the majority of the taste buds. From the taste buds, nerve signals are transmitted in the lingual branches which travel towards the jugular foramen.

The inferior glossopharyngeal ganglia, also known as the petrosal or the petrous ganglion, contains the sensory cell bodies and it is situated just below the jugular foramen. The glossopharyngeal nerve enters the cranium through the jugular foramen with the vagus nerve and the accessory nerve and the afferent fibers travel through the superior glossopharyngeal or the lesser petrosal ganglion. They carry on into the medulla through the cerebellar pontine angle to synapse in the rostral solitary nucleus which is slightly caudal to the synapses of the facial nerve and you can see this on our diagram just here.

vagus nerve

The vagus nerve is cranial nerve ten, and we’ve highlighted superior laryngeal branch of the vagus nerve which carries taste information from taste buds on the laryngeal surface of the epiglottis. So, this branch joins the vagus nerve from the thoracic and abdominal internal organs and their sensory cell bodies form the inferior vagal ganglion. The afferent fibers into the cranium through the jugular foramen with the glossopharyngeal nerve and the accessory nerve and pass through the superior vagal ganglion and they synapse in the rostral solitary nucleus caudal to the synapses of the glossopharyngeal nerve.

Other projections of the vagus nerve such as those responsible for saliva secretion and gastric secretion and motility synapse in the solitary nucleus. And this explains why taste increases salivation and gastric activity. The vagus nerve is also an effector of the vomiting reflex so a bad taste can cause you to vomit. This is important evolutionarily as it’s allowed us to recognize and rapidly expel potentially harmful food based on their taste.

At the rostral solitary nucleus, the paths of the taste afferents converge as demonstrated. At this point, the fibers from each nerve mix and then they split into three pathways. So, the first pathway goes to the ventral posteromedial nucleus of the thalamus and then it moves onto the taste sensory cortex where we become aware of the sensation. The second lot of fibers travel to synapse in the pontine taste area before going on to terminate in the lateral hypothalamic area. And the third pathway also synapses in the pontine taste area and it runs to the amygdala.

sensory cortex

The taste sensory cortex communicates with the lateral hypothalamic area and amygdala and it’s generally accepted that the lateral hypothalamic area and amygdaloid body are responsible for appetite, satiety and other homeostatic mechanisms. The fact that the sensory cortex sends signals to these areas could be the reason we feel more satiated after experiencing taste we desire. And it’s important to note that the amygdala is involved in the motion and memory formation amongst other functions which is why we attach such strong emotions to food and perhaps why we crave certain foods in certain emotional states, for example, pizza or whatever it is that gives you comfort when you’re feeling down.

we’ve seen how the raw sensation of taste is detected and brought to our attention, and now, we’ll look at the other senses involved in sensing the flavor of a food starting with somatosensory pathways. And there are two parts of the somatosensory pathway – number one being touch and number two being temperature and pain, which are grouped together as they are transmitted by the same nerve fibers. Of course, let’s begin by looking at touch.

sensation of touch

throughout the oral cavity, the sensation of touch is detected by mechanoreceptors with the same nerve endings that are present in the rest of the body. Signals are carried by the maxillary branch of the trigeminal nerve which is shown here and the mandibular branch which is highlighted here. The branches converged at the trigeminal ganglion and then leave and enter the brainstem through the trigeminal trunk. In the medulla, the fibers decussate to the contralateral dorsal medial lemniscal pathway which carries the information to be registered in the brain. And this gives us information on the shape and on the texture of a food.

Moving on to the other aspect of the somatosensory component of taste which is temperature and pain. So temperature and pain are detected by bare nerve endings in the oral cavity and the peripheral pathway is the same as of that of the touch pathway passing through the maxillary and mandibular branches of the trigeminal nerve through the trigeminal ganglion and into the brainstem via the trigeminal trunk.

nerve synapse

In the medulla, the nerve synapse in the trigeminal spinal nucleus. The pathway then decussates to the spinothalamic trunk to ascend into the cortices and we gain information on the temperature of the food and detect dangers causing pain. FYI, spicy food is not a true taste and is, in fact, a sensation from pain and temperature fibers. actually when you’re eating your favorite curry, what you’re detecting is not taste per se but the pain from the heat that it’s causing you.

let’s now move on to discuss how the nose helps us taste things and we’ve changed our diagram for this because we want to be looking at a midline sagittal section through the nasal cavity and the brain and this image is from the medial aspect.

taste buds can actually only taste around five flavors – sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami which is that Japanese taste that you find in miso soup. the different combinations of these allow for the detection of a range of different tastes but this does not really account for the many taste that we can experience. olfaction – that is, our sense of smell – is actually really vital for the interpretation of taste and it’s detected by olfactory epithelium on the cribriform plate on the top of the nose.

Olfactory nerve

Olfactory nerve fibers penetrate through the cribriform plate to take smell signals into the olfactory bulb and from there, the information is relayed along the olfactory tract to synapse in the nuclei of the olfactory cortex. Notes that the olfactory cortex has multiple nuclei in different locations. Firstly, it has the dorsal medial thalamus which is responsible for the conscious component of smell, the amygdala, and the limbic system which is responsible for linking smell to emotions and memory.

we’ve been talking about how touch, temperature, pain and smell contribute to the experience of eating a delicious slice of pizza but how do they interact? So, let’s talk about the orbitofrontal cortex. The orbitofrontal cortex contains secondary cortices of gustation, sensation, olfaction and sight. And what does this mean? This means that connecting fibers from the primary cortices bring signals to the orbitofrontal cortex. And, here, information from the individual senses is combined to give us an overall impression of the food. The orbitofrontal cortex also has communicating fibers with the limbic system as well as the amygdala which allows us to attach emotion and to reward values to certain food experiences, and it also facilitates memory formation in relation to that food.

There’s a couple more things that are involved in the taste pathway if it wasn’t complicated enough. Though for things to be tasted, you need to expose the chemical area of the food. That it combine to a taste receptor on the gustatory cells and you need to get the food to the taste receptors. There are two main accessory structures which are involved in these and the first one is the filiform papillae which we mentioned earlier and the salivary glands. And, of course, we’re going to talk briefly about how each of these contributes to taste.

the filiform papillae

are these hair like structures and as we mentioned earlier, they have no taste function. Instead, they have mechanical functions. So the filiform papillae are really helpful in assisting with swallowing, with cleaning the mouth and it has a role in spreading saliva around the mouth. These functions are really important because they increase the chances of food particles passing over the taste receptors and it also helps with washing particles that have already been tasted out of the taste buds. Therefore, it can be seen that they work closely with the next accessory structure we’ll be discussing which is the salivary glands.

And there are three main pairs of salivary glands – the parotid glands, the submandibular glands and the sublingual glands. The salivary glands assist with taste by acting as a solvent for taste particles allowing them to be washed around the mouth and this increases the chances that each food particle will be tasted. It also facilitates clearance of detected taste particles from taste buds and the other way they help with taste detection is through the enzymes they produce as the enzymes that they produce start to digest food which exposes more molecules to bind with taste receptors.

minor salivary glands

There are also a couple of minor salivary glands such as von Ebner’s glands which we mentioned earlier when we spoke about the vallate papillae, and these glands assist with the clearance of detected food particles from taste buds and it folds around the vallate papillae and between the foliate papillae.

let’s give a mention to the clinical relevance of taste. So, if you remember at the beginning of the tutorial, we mentioned that we’re going to talk about a condition called dysgeusia which is a condition when taste perception is lost or distorted – lost meaning a complete loss or decreased ability to taste, distorted meaning anything from abnormal perception of a taste or perception of a taste in the absence of a taste stimulus also known as phantom taste.

people problem

around seven percent of people have a problem with taste or smell. And there are a few causes some of which include chemotherapy drugs, zinc deficiency, oral thrush, antibiotics and head injury. Dysgeusia can be very distressing and it can reduce a patient’s quality of life to a huge degree. Imagine, not being able to taste your favorite dinner or instead of tasting it as it’s meant to be, it tastes metallic.

So, the mainstay of managing this condition is to change the taste of the food eaten by, for example, adding more spices or condiments and drinking more water to rinse away bad taste. Unfortunately, there are no drug therapies to help alleviate the symptoms and it’s not really clear why taste is affected with any of these causes but hopefully with greater knowledge of the pathways involved in taste, we’ll be able to understand this soon. And understanding the factors contributing to taste will us to think of other ways to replace taste sensation if the detection in the mouth is damaged.

Summary

It was a little bit complicated but I’m sure you’re stuck with me. So, we’re going to just go over a summary of what we discussed today. And, today, we talked about the aspects of taste which include gustation, somatosensorial and olfaction. The pathways involved in each and mentioned that the sensations are combined and processed in the orbitofrontal cortex.

For gustation, taste is detected by taste buds on the taste papillae in the oral cavity. Then we looked at how the facial nerve. The glossopharyngeal nerve and the vagus nerve work together to carry taste sensation to the rostral solitary nucleus in the brainstem. From there, signals are passed superiorly by three different pathways to terminate in the taste sensory cortex. The amygdala and the lateral hypothalamic area.

Next, we talked about the somatosensory pathway which is divided into two parts – touch and temperature and pain – then we went over olfaction and its pathway. Finally, we mentioned dysgeusia which is a condition where knowledge of the taste pathway. May be relevant in discovering more understanding of what’s going on and developing ways to help those afflicted.

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papillae as mucous membranes formed by cells bulging from underneath the tongue. Papillae are little bumps, and they make the tongue look rough. There are four types of papillae that co-exist on the surface of the tongue. These types include: filiform, fungiform, foliate and circumvallate.

papillae formation serves a specific function, Lingual papillae (singular papilla) are the small. nipple-like structures on the upper surface of the tongue that give it its characteristic rough texture.

The four types of papillae. on the human tongue have different structures and are accordingly classified as circumvallate. (or vallate), fungiform, filiform, and foliate. All except the filiform papillae are associated with taste buds.

Filiform papillae

the most numerous of the lingual papillae.They are fine, small, cone-shaped papillae covering most of the dorsum of the tongue. They are responsible for giving the tongue its texture and are responsible for the sensation of touch. Unlike the other kinds of papillae, filiform papillae do not contain taste buds.

most of the front two-thirds of the tongue’s surface. They are appear as very small, conical or cylindrical surface projections. and are arranged in rows which lie parallel to the sulcus terminalis. At the tip of the tongue, these rows become more transverse. Histologically, they are made up of irregular connective tissue cores with a keratin–containing epithelium which has fine secondary threads.

Heavy keratinization of filiform papillae, occurring for instance in cats, gives the tongue a roughness that is characteristic of these animals. These papillae have a whitish tint, owing to the thickness and density of their epithelium. This epithelium has undergone a peculiar modification as the cells have become cone–like and elongated into dense, overlapping, brush-like threads.

also contain a number of elastic fibers, which render them firmer and more elastic than the other types of papillae. The larger and longer papillae of this group are sometimes termed papillae conical

Fungiform papillae

Fungiform , magnified and sectional diagram. The fungiform papillae are club shaped projections on the tongue, generally red in color. you can found them on the tip of the tongue.  scattered amongst the filiform papillae but are mostly present on the tip and sides of the tongue.

They have taste buds on their upper surface which can distinguish the five tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami. They have a core of connective tissue.

The fungiform papillae are innervated by the seventh cranial nerve. more specifically via the submandibular ganglion.  chorda tympani, and geniculate ganglion ascending to the solitary nucleus in the brainstem..

Foliate papillae

Magnified diagram of a vertical section through some foliate papillae in a rabbit. Foliate papillae are short vertical folds and are present on each side of the tongue.

located on the sides at the back of the tongue, just in front of the palatoglossal arch of the fauces. There are four or five vertical folds,and their size and shape is variable.The foliate papillae appear as a series of red colored, leaf–like ridges of mucosa.

your tongue covered with epithelium, lack keratin and so are softer, and bear many taste buds.They are usually bilaterally symmetrical. Sometimes they appear small and inconspicuous, and at other times they are prominent.

their location is a high risk site for oral cancer, and their tendency to occasionally swell, they may be mistaken as tumors or inflammatory disease.

Taste buds, the receptors of the gustatory sense, are scattered over the mucous membrane of their surface. Serous glands drain into the folds and clean the taste buds.

Circumvallate papillae

Circumvallate papilla in vertical section, showing arrangement of the taste-buds and nerves.  The circumvallate papillae (or vallate papillae) are dome-shaped structures on the human tongue that vary in number from 8 to 12.

They are situated on the surface of the tongue immediately in front of the foramen cecum and sulcus terminalis. forming a row on either side. the two rows run backward and medially, and meet in the midline.

Each papilla consists of a projection of mucous membrane from 1 to 2 mm.  wide, attached to the bottom of a circular depression of the mucous membrane.  the margin of the depression is elevated to form a wall (vallum), and between this and the papilla is a circular sulcus termed the fossa.

they are shaped like a truncated cone. the smaller end being directed downward and attached to the tongue. the broader part or base projecting a little above the surface of the tongue and being studded with numerous small secondary papillæ , they covered by stratified squamous epithelium.

Ducts of lingual salivary glands  known as Von Ebner’s glands empty a serous secretion into the base of the circular depression, which acts like a moat.

function of the secretion is presumed to flush materials. it means from the base of circular depression to ensure that taste buds.

taste buds can respond to changing stimuli rapidly.

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When we drink a cup of coffee, cause from all five senses turn into signals in the brain, travel through complex circuitry and produce what we call flavor.

As you’ve probably realized if you’ve worked in coffee for a long time, not everyone perceives the same thing when tasting coffee. Individuals vary based on their level of experience, their genetic, how they are feeling that day, and many other factors. So, is it possible to form an agreement on exactly how a particular coffee tastes?

In other words, we can , whose perception of flavor is inherently subjective, produce data with almost machine-like precision? Are we fooling ourselves when we aim for agreement between people who have different memories, emotions, and experiences? Let’s dig a little deeper into a few of these sources of variation.

Genetics

First, it is well-known that genetic variation exists in taste sensitivity. If you’ve tasted one of those paper strips in high school biology class, you know what I’m talking about. There’s a gene for the receptor that determines how strongly a person perceives the bitterness of a compound called phenylthiocarbamide . Based on how intolerably bitter the strip is to a person, they are categorized as a “taster,” a “non taster,” or a “supertaster”.

However, the degree to which a person can taste PTC does not predict their sensitivity to other bitter compounds, let alone other tastes. There is some evidence that PTC taster status can influence coffee preference .

Taste bud distribution on the tongue also varies genetically. Some people taste more intensely because they have more taste receptor sites . Some people are “smell-blind,” or anomic, to specific odorants . Even our affinity for cilantro is partially genetic: people with a certain genotype more frequently report an unpleasant, soapy taste .

Memory and Experience

A person’s previous experience can affect which flavor attributes they notice when tasting a coffee. There are multiple elements to this, from subconscious associations to cultural culinary preferences.

Our past food experiences can influence our reaction to new flavors, including both how we describe them and their hedonic valence, or pleasantness. As any cupper knows, the more familiar we are with a particular food, the more nuances we notice.

What It Means for Coffee Professionals

So, how much does this matter for everyday operations, and what can we do about it?

Minimizing variation from other sources is also crucial in balancing individual variation. The more we can dial in the variables between cuppings, the more precise our sensory data and the more meaningful our conclusions.

The important part is not necessarily standardization across the entire industry, but clear communication within companies and within supply chains. Many coffee companies have developed extensive cupping protocols and standards. The terms and references in the Lexicon can serve as a useful complement to these. What is most important is that you can communicate within your own supply chain about what your product, the coffee, tastes like.

Academic sensory science, while a different exercise than cupping, can provide helpful principles. Here are a few practical tips, courtesy of Molly Spencer, one of the lead developers of the new flavor wheel:

1. Establish a training standard and calibrate yourself.

Consider implementing a procedure to make sure you’re all on the same page. When someone is learning cupping, test their accuracy. There is a lot of background flavor in a cup of coffee. spiking in flavor defects to a cup of coffee. This helps a novice cupper learn how the defects show up against the other flavor complexities of the cup.

2. Use warmup samples and references. 

Everyone who has evaluated flavor knows there are just some days when you’re more “tuned in” than others. Get in the zone before cupping by warming up with a few samples before you begin scoring.for familiar tastes, it’s helpful for everyone on your cupping team to experience the same reference. When they are describing a certain word, like blueberry flavor, they’re all on the same page about what the definition of that really is. Training to a common standard helps mitigate individual variation.

3. Take frequent breaks.

In sensory science, it is standard to evaluate no more than 6-8 samples at once. Molly says, Coffee is so complex, there is physiological fatigue because your tongue and nose can only take so much. If you’re evaluating a lot of samples, try to space them out in time to preserve acuity.

consistency in protocol is key. Minimizing the variation in the cupping process details can help decrease the noise in your data. This can be especially important for companies with staff and roasteries in multiple locations.

Variation between tasters is a significant factor in coffee cupping, but it’s one that can be partially overcome by honing our process. Even simple practices like coding cups and taking a few more breaks can vastly improve the precision of our data. This precision helps us learn even more about the coffees we roast and serve, and ultimately communicate more specifically about their uniqueness and value.

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Identified by a team of University of Miami researchers in 1996, umami is our fifth taste — the long-lost counterpart of four other tastes with which we are far more familiar, sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Since the research team published its findings in 2000, umami has seized the interest of other scientists, health professionals, food manufacturers and chefs around the world. Many people struggle to define umami, often calling it savory, meaty or rich. They try to explain it by referring to food examples of umami: a golden chicken soup, roasted shiitake mushrooms or navy beans simmered with the bone of a well-cured ham. Even though it wouldn’t be any easier to describe salty or sweet without referring to the way those tastes are represented in certain foods, umami comes off as somehow more exotic. That explains why some consumers are compelled and others leery about the sudden wave of interest in all things umami. “Some people think of umami as a newfangled, overly scientific term that they don’t need,” says Fuchsia Dunlop, author of Land of Plenty (W. W. Norton, 2003) — a Sichuan cookbook — and an expert on both cooking and current events in China. “But I think it’s tremendously useful because it explains so much of what we already know about traditional cooking. We’re just using the Japanese word for it. That makes it sound foreign, but it’s not foreign at all.”

What Is Umami?

As far back as 3,000 years ago, Greeks and Romans were carefully boosting what we now know as the umami in their foods by using a condiment made from fermented fish sauce. In 1825, in his famous treatise The Physiology of Taste, French gastronome Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin offered the word “osmasome” for rich, meaty tastes, and he predicted that future chemists would probably figure out what triggered it. Finally, in the 20th century, Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda hung a lasting moniker on the taste and determined its source. In 1908, Ikeda began trying to replicate the flavor of a traditional soup he made from boiled kombu (one of the sea vegetables often called seaweed) and dried tuna. He mixed together salty, sweet, bitter and sour, but it was something altogether different. In his lab, he finally managed to isolate the substance that gave the broth its distinctive taste: glutamate, the most plentiful of the 20 amino acids that make up proteins. Ikeda named the taste of glutamate “umami,” most simply translated as “delicious.” (The flavor enhancer monosodium glutamate, or MSG, is the sodium salt of glutamate. Comprising water, sodium and glutamate, MSG acts on the same receptors as glutamate. For more, see “MSG: Cooks’ Cocaine?” in the sidebar.) Other scientists soon built upon Ikeda’s discovery with new revelations. Not only do other amino acids trigger this deliciousness, but there is also a second group of compounds that build the effect. These are nucleotides, the molecular building blocks of RNA and DNA, found in a wide range of foods, including shellfish, pork and mushrooms. They impart some umami on their own, but more important, they magnify the umami of foods rich in glutamates and other amino acids — foods like chicken, tomatoes, aged cheeses, fresh corn and almonds. When nucleotide-rich foods are added to foods rich in amino acids, the result is a flavorful synergy that heightens the drama. “That’s the key to umami cooking,” says chef David Kasabian, coauthor with his wife, Anna, of The Fifth Taste: Cooking with Umami (Universe, 2005), a virtual umami bible with scientific explanations, recipes from America’s top chefs, and the Kasabians’ own umami-accelerated versions of classics like meatloaf and chicken in wine. “When you put the basic umami and the synergizing umami together, the effect isn’t just additive — it’s multiplied. A basic tomato sauce has lots of umami, but when you add mushrooms, it has considerably more.”

Umami Flavor

Over the course of the past decade, scientists have discovered receptors housed in our taste buds that respond specifically to umami, just as there are receptors for sweet, salty, sour and bitter. When these receptors bind to glutamates and certain other amino acids and nucleotides, they send a signal to the brain. That signal combines with signals triggered by savory aromas to create a highly pleasant sensation concentrated in the orbitofrontal cortex, the section of the brain right above the eyes. “Umami is a separate taste quality mediated by separate receptors, “And we like the taste. It’s a savory, yummy quality.” The fact that our bodies are designed to recognize and enjoy umami tells us that foods with naturally occurring umami are good for us. “There aren’t that many taste receptors in the mouth, so one has to assume that there’s a long-term biological interest in detecting umami, Our sense of taste is a highly evolved mechanism that signals what we should and should not eat. All humans respond positively to the taste of sweets because sweet foods are a reliable source of calories. We may wish we could turn off this particular mechanism when coworkers leave a platter of brownies near the coffeemaker, but our foraging forebears relied on the instinctual preference for sweets to identify good sources of food energy.

We respond positively to the taste for salt because it contains minerals that help our bodies maintain a proper electrolyte balance.

We respond negatively — at least as infants — to bitter and sour, because those tastes warned early humans that something might be poisonous, unripe or spoiled. As adults, most of us enjoy bitter and sour flavors in small quantities that help heighten or highlight other flavors and aromas. Many researchers now believe that humans developed a taste for umami because it signals the presence of protein. The foods packing the greatest umami punch are the ones that provide proteins broken down into free amino acids. These “free” glutamates and other amino acids are created by fermenting, aging, toasting, roasting, braising, stewing — any process that breaks complete proteins into their constituent parts. Thus, an aged steak has more umami than a fresh one; raw eggs have umami but considerably more when cooked; winter squash goes wild with umami when slowly roasted. But some foods such as corn and peas are packed with umami when fresh. (For more foods teeming with umami, see “Umami Shopping List,” in the sidebar.) When we eat whole proteins, our digestive systems burn a lot of energy breaking them down into amino acids. The amino acids in umami-rich foods are already in a free state, so they are more quickly and easily digested than complete proteins. As the Kasabians put it, “Umami is the taste of amino acids that are ready for our bodies to use.” The free glutamates are immediately put to work in the intestines, where they fuel the overall digestive process.

Mindful Eating and Umami

Understanding these umami mechanisms isn’t just interesting — it’s useful, says Edmund Rolls, DSc, a professor at the Oxford Centre for Computational Neuroscience, who researches taste mechanisms and the brain. “Many people are interested in knowing what makes food palatable,” says Rolls, in part because this helps “promote the eating of good food at the expense of unhealthy foods.” Understanding the science of cuisine is important in this regard, he explains, because it helps us develop food preparations that are appropriate. “For instance,” he says, “some people don’t like the taste of nutritionally good foods like green vegetables, but you can enhance the flavor of these foods by adding umami.” By choosing foods that taste good — and understanding how to make them taste even better — we’re simply relying on the body’s basic wisdom to maintain a balanced diet and a healthy weight. Jacqueline Marcus, RD, a nutritionist who practices in Northfield, Ill., points out that we are born with basic instincts telling us which foods are good for us and how much we need to eat of them. Just watch how a baby gulps umami-rich breast milk, then pushes away from the mother when full. “The umami taste helps provide you with the sensation of being fed,” says Marcus, who’s been researching and working with umami for 12 years. “That’s essential in weight management. Foods with umami flavor are satisfying to the palate and support satiety, or fullness.” In a culture looking for ways to amplify eating pleasures without amplifying its already significant weight problems, that’s umami wisdom worth trying. This article has been updated. It originally appeared in the May 2012 issue of Experience Life magazine.

Umami Foods

Umami-rich foods are delicious on their own and can also make healthy foods like basic vegetables and legumes taste more enticing. In The Fifth Taste: Cooking with Umami (Universe, 2005), chef David Kasabian and his journalist wife, Anna, break down umami ingredients into two groups: basic umami (foods that impart umami through amino acids like glutamates) and synergizing umami (foods that add some umami and, especially, amplify the umami taste of the first group). Many foods have both basic and synergizing umami compounds. Here are a few examples:

Basic Umami

Corn, peas, tomatoes, red bell peppers, winter squash Almonds, walnuts and other tree nuts Sea vegetables, Duck, turkey, chicken (especially mature birds and dark meat), fresh and cured pork products (which are also synergizing), aged steaks, Aged and blue-veined cheeses, Fin fish (especially smoked, dried or pickled), fish sauce, and shellfish (which are also synergizing)

Fermented soy products like

soy sauce, tempeh and miso, Legumes, Black olives, Pickled plums (ume) and many other pickled vegetables and fruits

Synergizing Umami

Mushrooms, truffles and other fungi — the darker, the better, Pork, beef, lamb, turkey and chicken, Shellfish, especially oysters and uni (sea urchin), Darker-fleshed fin fish such as tuna, mackerel and salmon, Many sea vegetables, including nori and wakame

MSG: Cooks’ Cocaine?

Monosodium glutamate (MSG), the much-maligned flavor additive, has been at the center of a food controversy for years. Here’s what you need to know to make up your own mind about whether to enjoy MSG or avoid it. Shortly after chemist Kikunae Ikeda discovered that glutamates were the source of the deliciousness — what he dubbed the umami — in his soup, a Japanese company used his patent to manufacture a substance that would change cuisines around the world: monosodium glutamate. U.S. food manufacturers began incorporating MSG into a wide variety of processed foods in the 1930s and ’40s. Restaurants and home cooks also sprinkled it liberally. Then, in the 1960s, MSG experienced a public-relations disaster. The New England Journal of Medicine printed a letter from a physician who said that he and his friends felt dizzy and headachy after eating in Chinese restaurants and suggested that MSG might be the cause. Subsequent studies supported this conjecture, but most involved injecting rats with massive doses of MSG — far more than a person would ever eat. Some studies have not found any evidence that MSG poses a problem to most people who eat normally. Scientists who study umami insist that MSG is the same as the naturally occurring free glutamates that are found in food. Still, many health-conscious and food-sensitive individuals remain wary of MSG, noting that eating it makes them feel dehydrated, brain fogged, puffy or headachy. Those who suffer from migraines, chemical sensitivities or ADD/ADHD are often counseled by their health professionals to stay away from MSG at all costs. And many culinary experts see MSG as a cheap stand-in for high-quality ingredients and good preparation — the mark of a compromised food product or dish. “MSG is a shortcut to good taste,” says Chinese cooking expert Fuchsia Dunlop. “People often take greasy, junky food and add MSG to make it appealing. I call it the ‘cook’s cocaine.” Some processed foods that don’t contain MSG are full of other substances that deliver free glutamates: textured protein, sodium caseinate, hydrolyzed yeast and many more. Like MSG, the presence of such ingredients may indicate that whatever natural flavor these foods might once have had can no longer stand on their own. “Processed food is so handled and heated and stored that the natural amino acids are gone,” says David Kasabian, who with his wife, Anna, wrote The Fifth Taste: Cooking with Umami (Universe, 2005). “They have to include these ingredients to compensate for that loss.” Maggie Ward, RD, nutrition director of the UltraWellness Center in Lenox, Mass., says it’s best to get your umami from natural ingredients. “My preference is that people eat whole foods for health and healing,” Ward says. “The glutamates in MSG are not the way nature presented them, and I think people are much better off enjoying umami from natural sources like fish sauce, seaweed and shiitake mushrooms.”

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The pour over method involves pouring hot water through coffee grounds in a filter. The water way  through the coffee and filter into a mug. Pour over is also known as filter coffee or drip coffee, although these terms also include batch brewers. What sets pour over apart is that it is made by hand-pouring the water over the coffee. So you may hear it called hand brewing or manual brewing.

Pour over accentuates intricate flavors when compared to other brewing methods, because of the shape and the material of filter,  This makes it a popular choice for single origin coffees, since it allows the flavors and aromas to shine.

Good filter coffee is clean, clear, and consistent. This is because the water is allowed to extract coffee oils and fragrances in its own consistent time and at its own pressure. The filter then catches a lot of oils, leading to a clean cupAnd because this is an infusion method, it is a little more efficient at extracting coffee solubles than immersion techniques such as the French press. Immersion methods cause the water to become saturated, whereas pour overs use a constant supply of fresh water.all infusion methods (including espresso) run the risk of channeling, where a stream of water finds an easy route around the ground coffee. This happens when there are clumps of coffee or the grounds are unevenly distributed, and it means that some of the coffee doesn’t get extracted. So it’s important that baristas learns how to pour in a way that evenly immerses the grounds in water.Because it is difficult to replicate a method precisely every time, some café owners and brewers prefer to use SCA-approved batch brewers instead. These machines bring automation to the method and can have more consistent results than a hand pour. We need some equipment for make the best cup of coffee easy : •     Brewing Devices, •    Filters, •       Scales, •       Scales, •       Kettles

It may seem like there is an unending amount of options for pour over equipment, but you don’t need to invest in all of it. You can start with a simple device and some filters and then add more equipment as you choose.

Brewing Devices

A dripper is simply the piece of equipment that holds the coffee filter and grounds coffee. The V60, Kalita Wave are popular choices. All three sit on top of the cup or carafe and they may seem interchangeable.The Chemex is another popular option with its own design features that impact the cup. The advantage of using any one of these devices is that they are widely available, simple to use, and have filters made specifically for their design.

Filters

Barista tip: you should always rinse your filter before you brew! This rinses out the paper taste and dust and warms up your brewer. You may think that the filter is the least controversial part of brewing, but there is even some debate here. Specific filters are designed to fit different devices and allow efficient extraction. The Chemex uses paper filters that are 20–30% heavier than other filters, which the manufacturers say retain more of the suspended oils during the brewing process. Some claim that paper filters create an undesirable papery taste, particularly if they are bleached. To avoid this, rinse your filter before using it. Cloth filters have been around for a long time and some people prefer them because they don’t affect flavor and have a smaller environmental impact than paper.

Scales

but if you want to create consistently good coffee, they are. Its important to know exactly how much of each you used in a good (or bad) brew can allow you to replicate the recipe or tweak it for even better results.

Kettles

Electric kettel, stove-top, or a batch water heater is up to you but look into the reviews of specific kettles and keep a thermometer handy to keep an eye on the temperature.

Roast Profile

Because the pour over method works well to highlight subtle flavor notes and aromas, you may want to choose a light roast. Beans that are roasted to this profile are the brightest, with the most acidic flavors. Chad says “Light roasts showcase the most authentic quality of the coffee.”Of course, you can go medium or even dark if you prefer, but this brewing method is complementary to subtle flavors.

Grind Size

The size of your grounds affects the rate of extraction. Pour over is a an infusion method, which means that the coffee and water are in contact for a shorter amount of time than in an immersion method, but longer than in an espresso. So you want the coffee to have enough surface area to extract before the water filters through into the cup, but not so much that they under-extract and produce a bitter brew.What this means is that you should start with a medium grind size and then evaluate your cup and tweak it as needed. If it’s a little watery or sour, try a finer grind. If it’s bitter and lacking sweet notes, try going a little coarser. And invest in a quality grinder to make sure your coffee particles are all ground to the same size. Lower-quality grinders may produce inconsistently ground coffee and a lot of “fines”. These tiny fragments of coffee extract very quickly and can throw your cup off. “We use finely ground, not coarse,The advantage of the fine grind size is that you increase the body and aroma of the coffee. And if you are going to make a fast extraction, you’re also going to get the sweetness and the cleanliness that you want in the cup.”

What Ratio of Coffee to Water Should You Use?

You’ll see a lot of different suggested ratios out there, but 1litter water and 55-60gr coffee (1g of coffee to 16g of water) is a generally accepted good starting point. Make some brews with this measurement but adjust factors that affect extraction, such as grind size and water temperature, one at a time until you find a recipe that works for you. Then, try changing the ratio of coffee to water. If your brew tastes watery or weak, add more coffee without changing other factors and evaluate whether it tastes better. If you find your cup too intense, consider reducing the amount of coffee. But remember to keep track of what you’re changing so you can replicate your perfect brew when you find it.And don’t forget about the water. Tap water can contain minerals and contaminants that affect flavor, so use filtered water.

Which Pouring Technique Is Best?

Avoid watching too many videos on technique when you first start to brew with the pour over method. It can quickly get overwhelming. Instead, start out simple. Be consistent in how your pour and learn how to use blooming, pulse pouring, and agitation to achieve even extraction. Many people pour in concentric circles, which helps the barista maintain a consistent flow of water. You can work your way up to more detailed methods or break all the rules when you’re more familiar with the basics.

The Bloom

The bloom is the quick bubbling up of water that happens when you first pour. It is caused by the degassing of carbon dioxide that is built up in the roasting process. Light roasts and fresh coffee are likely to produce a big bloom because they usually contain more gases. Carbon dioxide can prevent even extraction because it repels water, and the disturbed grounds can sit at different heights. So let the gases escape and improve your chances of a consistent extraction. Gently pour twice the measure of coffee in water over the grounds. So, if you have a 15 g dose of coffee, pour 30 ml of water. Then wait 30 to 45 seconds until the bloom has ended and the grounds have settled. Don’t make wrong decision ,

Pulse Pouring & Continuous Pouring

Pulse pouring means using multiple pours of specific amounts of water. You can experiment with the volume of water and number of pours. This technique help prevent channeling or grounds rising up the side of the filter. It also gently disrupts the grinds, causing them to move about and creating more even contact with the water. It’s an alternative to continuous pouring, which is when the barista pours the water at as constant of a flow rate as possible without stopping. Continuous pouring aims to keep the flow and saturation as even as possible, whereas pulse pouring is intentionally varied. You can use pouring technique as another variable to consider when adapting your recipe. Different types of pours will have different effects on extraction and therefore have different impacts on your brew.

Agitation

This is simply mild disturbance of the coffee grounds during the brew process. There are many ways to agitate coffee, including stirring or swirling the brew. Agitation disperses grounds that can be left “high and dry” on the filter by channeling. It also breaks up any dry clumps inside the bed of coffee. By making sure all grounds are saturated, agitation aids even extraction. Pour over coffee can be a great way to make your daily cup and it doesn’t have to be complicated. By understanding these key topics, you’re well prepared to make a decent brew and have the tools to tweak it until it becomes a great one.

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 Controlling variables during roasting process

Coffee roasting includes adjusting many variables to create your perfect roast profile. By changing factors including temperature, length of roast, and airflow, you can highlight sweetness, emphasize acidity, or create a well-balanced roast. also drum speed, you can affect the amount of time that coffee beans are exposed to direct heat.Now you can change all those variable, Should you roast a Colombian Nariño the same way you would an Ethiopian Sidamo? Probably not.Producing countries have different climates, soil types, altitudes, density, moisture,  – and all that leads to very different coffees. The beans will react differently to heat, plus you will want to accentuate specific characteristics. In other words, you need to roast them differently.So before you create a profile and put your coffee in the roaster, you need as much information as possible about the beans. And today, I’m going to take you through some of the main origin-based variables to consider. At each stage of the coffee supply chain, the moisture content of a green bean must diminish – or the bean might become moldy, defective, and less valuable than before. Ensuring a bean dries correctly is essential in order to optimize its quality potential and minimize the chance of problems.Roasters, near the end of the supply chain, have two tasks when it comes to managing moisture content. On the one hand, they must maintain the lots they store onsite within a narrow moisture range that is acceptable to their quality standards.

On the other hand, and in the span of a few minutes, the roaster is responsible for driving the last remaining bits of moisture out of the bean via the application of intense heat and pressure. In these minutes, the coffee is exposed to the most energy it will experience at any point in the coffee supply chain and the roast is set up for either success or failure.It’s easy to see why roasters should care about the moisture content of their coffee. But how useful is a number supplied by an importer, and how can roasters integrate moisture content readings into their craft? I spoke with Fred Seeber of Shore Measuring Systems, a supplier of moisture content meters, about measuring and making sense of moisture content in green coffee.

There is no official standard for ideal moisture content in green coffee, although the ICO recommends 11% as a good target. However, it’s commonly accepted that 10-12% is a reasonable range. Anything less than 10% is likely to result in loss of cup quality, while humidity at higher levels begins to create a risk of mold growth. Yet a coffee’s humidity is not static. While the pre-export drying process drastically increases a bean’s stability, changes in moisture content are still possible. Environmental factors, such as being in a particularly humid or hot location, are a common cause of this. Before getting into the technical details of measuring moisture content, it’s worth digging a little deeper into why it’s worth measuring moisture content. Knowing this will help you establish protocols suited to your specific needs.

For roasters of a certain scale, it’s simple: you pay for coffee by weight; the more water in that coffee, the more you’ve paid for water which you’re going to burn off anyway. common situation roasters find themselves in: “So, [an importer] sends you a sample, and… it’s showing 11.5% moisture in that sample. Then when your container shows up, that’s 40,000 pounds, and all of the sudden you discover it could be 13% moisture. Well, you just got blanked for two percentage points of water of a commodity that’s four bucks a pound… that’s [a lot] of money.” For the smaller, quality-focused roaster, those kinds of calculations may or may not be relevant. But moisture content still plays an indirect role in a roaster’s costs, regardless of whether or not they’re buying a few containers or a few bags.

There is no direct link between a coffee’s quality and its moisture content. A 10% humidity coffee is not necessarily better or worse than a 12% coffee. However, over time, green coffee will gradually lose vibrance. This will eventually result in the dreaded “past crop” flavor, and this process is associated with the drying out of the coffee. Therefore, even for a small roaster, it’s important to keep track of moisture content. If you paid for an 85-point coffee at 12% moisture, by the time it reaches 10% moisture it may be more like an 83-point coffee. Yet, you still paid 85-point prices for it originally.

By comparing moisture content loss with quality degradation over time, you can make smart buying and consumption decisions with your green lots. And, when combined with water activity measurements, you can even predict the shelf life of your green coffee. Again, precision here is key: you want to track your coffee through a narrow range of percentage points over a long time frame. Lastly, you may think to yourself that you don’t need to measure moisture content yourself, since your importer supplies those numbers already. Fred cautions against this thinking. He points out that coffee is shipped on water and that ports can often be warm and humid, which will affect moisture readings. So, if you’re a roaster in a dry part of the United States but your importer is located in New Orleans or Houston, and is taking moisture readings from lots right as they arrive, those numbers might not be applicable to you by the time your coffee arrives at your facility. Elevation, or altitude, is of immense importance for coffee roasting – but what we’re really talking about is density. When coffee is grown at cooler temperatures (which, most of the time, means higher elevation), the cherries ripen slower and so develop more sugars. This leads to more complex sweetness, but also to harder, denser beans. When you have beans of different densities, they also react differently to the heat. Soft, low-density beans tend to have more air pockets inside them, which can slow down heat transference. To avoid scorching the outsides of the beans, you should use a lower initial charge temperature. We also recommends extending the length of the roast for these coffees. Knowing what altitude your coffee is grown at, how far it is from the equator, and the temperature on the farm will help you to anticipate the density. When roasting, it’s important to consider not just the structure of the bean, but also the flavor of it. And this can vary greatly. “We will never have an Ethiopian with the same type of acidity like that Kenya AA Kamwangi we once had,” Tom tells me, “and it will be very difficult to find a Colombia with the stone fruit, tea-like flavors of the Yirgacheffe coffees.”

you can expect well-balanced coffees from the Americas, with more chocolate and hazelnut notes appearing in Brazil. In East Africa, coffees tend to be clean, juicy, and fruity. Some regions lean more towards sweetness (like Burundi), while others are more acidic (like Kenya). Indonesia is often known for its heavy body and earthy tones. Yet there are so many flavor variations within one region, as a result of micro climates, terroir, varieties, production and processing methods, and more. Sulawesi, Indonesia is famous for its spice notes, while Bali has a more citric profile. A Panamanian Geisha will taste different from a Panamanian Bourbon. Brazil is so large, you can fit much of Europe in it – and it has a wide variety of profiles to match. And as Tom points out, some countries have multiple harvest seasons. it’s the roaster’s job to preserve what makes an origin special and “let the coffee speak”. Knowing the profile of the coffee origin will help you anticipate which flavors will be most prominent – and how you can emphasize them. roast graph data into two types of curves: control curves and reading curves. Control curves are variables that you directly control during the roast, such as the heat settings, airflow, and gas flow. Reading curves are temperature readings. Since the variables are constantly changing, they are recorded as line graphs.

But what reading curves do you need to know? the key ones are bean temperature, air/environment temperature, and rate of rise curves – although you can also measure bean color, air, and gas pressure for even greater insights. Denser, higher-altitude coffees are associated with greater acidity, and you’ll often hear this described in terms of fruit notes – mandarin, grapefruit, plum, blueberry, and so on. This is a highly prized trait, and if you’re roasting a coffee that has this quality, you may want to accentuate it. (Bear in mind, however, that while acidity can be good, underdeveloped and sour notes are not. There is a fine line.) the more acidity and fruitiness you will throw away. A faster Rate of Rise (RoR) is also recommended by many roasters for emphasizing acidity. On the other hand, if you want more sweetness – say you have a natural Bourbon from Burundi – then Willem Boot, CEO of Boot Coffee, recommends opting for a lower RoR. Sweet Maria’s also experimented with stretching out the drying phase of the roast, and found that it could highlight this quality. as for body, stretching out first crack could open up a more syrupy mouthfeel in a coffee. It’s important to remember that the qualities you want to highlight will all depend on the coffee itself, and its unique, overall profile. Roasting is a complex skill; there are no simple rules. These guidelines are just starting points for creating your roast profiles. Knowing the altitude, temperature, terroir, and origin profile is a great start to creating a roast profile for a coffee. “It’s about a commitment to get to know the origin and bring the best to the surface,”

But it’s only a start.

Bean temperature(the blue line)

The bean temperature curve will look a bit like a check mark; once it starts going up (something called the turning point – more on that to come!) it should always continue going up. If not, you risk stalling your coffee and developing bread-like, doughy flavours

ROR(other blue line which is vice vers)

The rate of rise curve is linked to bean temperature, but there’s a subtle difference: it measures the rate at which bean temperature changes. This will give you far earlier indications of temperature changes and, in turn, allow you more control over the roast. It has a very different shape to the bean temperature curve, rising sharply from zero shortly after the turning point.

Air temperature(RED line)

Air temperature is variable measures the environment inside the drum. It’s useful to know because much of the heat transfer in coffee roasting is via air. This line will follow a similar shape to the bean temperature curve.

Key Stages on Your Roast Graph

Now we know what the roast graph measures, you can start reading and interpreting these lines. To do so, you want to pay attention to several key points on the graph: charge temp, turning point, first crack, and end temp.

Charge Temperature

This is the temperature of your drum just before you add the coffee. By manipulating this, you can speed up or slow down the rate of rise and, in turn, choose how much acidity to accentuate. You should also pay attention to bean density and processing method when selecting this.

Turning Point

As you add the cold beans to the roaster, the heat inside the machine will dramatically fall before starting to rise again. The point at which it begins to rise is called turning point.

First Crack

One of coffee roasting most famous moments is first crack. First crack signals that the beans are almost ready. As the beans expand and moisture evaporates, steam develops inside the beans. This steam then forms pressure that cracks the beans open.

First crack it’s a moment that has been given almost mythical status in coffee roasting – and it deserves it. A key stage in any roast, understanding it will give you insight into how flavors and aromas are developing.

End Temperature

As the name suggests, this is the temperature at the end of your roast.

By understanding what’s going on inside the roaster at these key points, you’ll be able to start evaluating the impact of them on your beans. For example, by manipulating charge temp you can speed up or slow down your roast. The duration of first crack can affect body. Roasting graphs may, at first, be challenging. There’s a lot of data to collect and understand. However, as you start to work with air temperature, rate of rise, first crack, and more, you will begin to gain real mastery over how your coffee beans develop during roasting. So don’t be intimidated by these charts – start recording those temperatures and see how it helps you as a roaster. As heat is applied to the coffee beans, they go through endothermic and exothermic reactions. Up until first crack, the beans absorb the heat (an endothermic reaction). The moisture dissipates and the color changes from green to yellow and then brown. The aroma will be cereal-like: think toast, popcorn, or grass. As for first crack, this is a brief exothermic reaction: the beans release heat (energy) in the form of that steam we mentioned above, along with carbon dioxide. The bean will have doubled in size and shed the majority of their silver skin, but oils won’t yet be present. After first crack, it switches back to an endothermic reaction until second crack, the final exothermic reaction (if you choose to roast your beans that far).

Flavor Development

Although we like to talk about first and second crack when roasting coffee, it’s important to remember that coffee flavor profiles are the real goal. And for this reason, we also need to consider caramelization and the Maillard reaction. Both of these happen before first crack. The Maillard reaction occurs when we start to see browning, and it creates many of the flavors in our coffee – especially the savory ones. As for caramelization, it happens a little after the Maillard reaction it as the dehydration of sugars through heating, which then give off the carbon dioxide and H2O that cause first crack. As you may have guessed, this process leads to caramel flavors in the roast – but it’s also what causes bitter notes if the heat continues for too long. It’s hard to predict exactly when these reactions will take place. Joe tells me that they occur as a result of the amino acids and sugar molecules, and as these break down, hundreds of reactions occur. These reactions start at different temperatures, but, due to different coffee structures hitting these different temperatures at different times in the drum, they can overlap. Since it’s so difficult to anticipate these reactions, it’s even more important to pay attention to the aroma and color of the beans.

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