Looking at the World Coffee Research Sensory
Lexicon, a universal language of coffee’s sensory qualities. There's a lot
of good stuff in here, especially in the way they come up with 'reference
smells' for their descriptors. For example, for "Fermented" they have
two seemingly dissimilar things to give you the idea of what it is - 1.
Guinness Extra Stout beer in a glass, and 2. grass left in a sealed jar for two
weeks (to ferment).
The category for "Sour" seemed way simpler than I expected,
with only four substances, all acids. There's plenty of good stuff in here, but
I'll start with this brief category.
They begin by reminding you what Sour is: "The
fundamental taste factor associated with a citric acid solution," and this
is best represented by Citric Acid. They then go on to describe Sour Aromatics:
"An aromatic associated with the impression of a sour product," and
this is best represented by Bush's brand Pinto beans from a can (go figure,
I'll have to remind myself what this smells like). Then we get into the acids
themselves; there's only four.
ACETIC ACID
A sour, astringent, slightly pungent aromatic associated
with vinegar.
BUTYRIC ACID
A sour, fermented-dairy aromatic associated with certain
aged cheeses such as Parmesan.
ISOVALERIC ACID
A pungent, sour aromatic associated with sweaty,
perspiration-generated foot odor and certain aged cheeses such as Romano.
CITRIC ACID
A mild, clean, sour aromatic with slight citrus notes
accompanied by astringency.
MALIC ACID
A sour, sharp, somewhat fruity aromatic accompanied by astringency.
Now for the good part. All of these, except for citric and malic acid (I think) are the core of body odor aromas. Can I call them aromas then?
The smell comes not from the body itself, but from the
skin flora, the critters that live on your body, digesting your excreta and
then themselves excreting the odorful products. They break down the fat in your
sweat to get energy for themselves, and their waste product is a smelly acid.
Different species of bacteria produce different acids, and these listed above
are the big three. I guess they're in your coffee too.
source document:
World Coffee Research Sensory Lexicon, 2016
World Coffee Research
5728 John Kimbrough Blvd., Suite 201
College Station, TX 77843-2477
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