Gianmarco Ierardi 4/13/20 Gianmarco Ierardi 4/13/20

Become a better taster

Few questions people often ask when approaching to the specialty coffee industry are:

How do I recognise quality in coffee?
How can I describe those quality attributes ?
How can a train and develop my palate?

Here my 7 tips that helped us become better tasters:

Few questions people often ask when approaching to the specialty coffee industry are:

How do I recognise quality in coffee?
How can I describe those quality attributes ?
How can a train and develop my palate?

Became a better taster

Before sharing with you tips and tricks to became a better taster you should know that:

If the quality of raw product is low, there is very little you can do to make it better as a barista or roaster. Equal do not be surprised or upset about your drinking experience, if you are paying very little for that cup. You get for what you pay.
Stop judging and enjoy the experience a bit more. Respect what you are drinking and acknowledge that behind that cup there are human beings putting lots of work. It can’t always be perfect. There is no perfection but progression.
We should not be judging but instead providing constructive feedbacks.

Here i have written my 7 tips that helped us become better tasters:

Network

Can’t stress enough of how important is to network.

Find a local roastery, coffee shop, or coffee network with regular coffee cupping and tasting. Go along to a few shops and ask if they do cuppings or know someone who does.
Research for coffee groups on facebook, instagram, blogs or even event management apps on your smartphone. I was using Eventbrite in Au and participated in more than 60 coffee events in one year.
It may seem difficult at first, especially if you live in a small town, but keep persevering; you’ll find one eventually.

Drink lots of coffee

I am sure you are already doing it but keep pushing.

Drink as much different origins, roast profiles and styles as you can to compare analyse and memorize differences and characteristics.
Anything is good even bad shots are good, that is why if I pulled a bad shot of coffee behind the machine, either a terribly under extracted or over extracted ones, I’d drunk it to understand what is good, what is bad and why is that. Very important.

Smell everything

Flavour = taste + smell

Seems safe enough to say that if you wanna become a better taster you also need to train your sense of smell. The nasal membrane can sense thousand of distinct odours, with the average person capable of differentiating 2000 to 4000 odours. Generally speaking coffee cuppers rely on a highly developed odor memory created through years of experience and training.

Broaden your diet

In order to build that muscle memory we need to get in contact with as many elements as we can. You can not taste something you do not have a memory of. That is why is very important to build and constantly train your muscle memory to then recall those memories while tasting.

Eat more fruits, candies and different type of cuisine from around the world to expand your culinary vocabulary and tasting experiences.
When going for grocery shopping smell anything you can from fruits to vegetable.

Exercise and train to improve

We also want to practise tasting some common coffee flavours.

Buy a selection of different food such as nuts, chocolate, fruits, vegetable, spices, herbs and taste them with the purpose of analysing flavours and store those informations as memories.
Generally speaking start eating and drinking things with a purpose.
Now apply your experience by using your memories to the coffee you are drinking. Write down everything you think, remembering that the purpose is to develop a skill to give constructive feedbacks to get better and do better, not to judge.

Do not stress about tasting notes

People stresses too much about tasting notes forgetting all the rest.

Tasting notes are strictly related to you being exposed to a certain type of food and drinking culture, therefore are extremely personal. Instead of asking “what does it taste like?”, ask yourself “what does it remind me of ?”
Sometimes tasting notes you see on the coffee bags are too detailed, too personal and too much pushed towards the marketing side trying to sell the coffee with interesting and “appealing” tasting notes.

Be schematic and organised

Write down or memorise a scheme, a path to follow when analysing the coffee you are drinking / tasting in order to build an easy and repeatable routine.

Refer to broader categories to better communicate with other people from different countries and cultures. I am talking about the “Flavour wheel” a tool designed to unify the tasting experience and gather notes that speak the language of the people independently from where they are from in the world. Matching tasting notes is not easy and will come with training and experience.
Describe macro categories first such as fruity, nutty, floral, chocolaty.
Indicate colors as descriptors such as yellow for citrusy fruits or orange for tropicals, red for that full red ripe and juicy fruity like flavour, brown for nuts and chocolate.
Focus also on other important characteristics such as Aroma / Fragrance / Acidity / sweetness / body / Length / Complexity / balance / Flavour.

If you would like to have a chat regarding in-depth details, tips, training methods and smart routines to become a better taster hit the “learn more” button now.

Learn more

I would like to hear your thoughts, opinions and experiences. If this was helpful and inspiring tag or use #gianmarcoierardi on instagram to connect with me !

“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.”

— Socrates

All the above is based on our personal and professional experience, it is what we believe and what brought us here writing this guide.Onto the way to success there are no rules, just commitment and consistency.Ultimately the is no right and wrong but only different ways of thinking, different approaches and different methods.There is no perfection but only progression.Do not believe who says to know everything. Learning is ongoing and endless.What we believe is right today might be wrong tomorrow, stay always up to date.
Be curious.
I wrote this hoping to inspire others! If you made it to read all of this to the end..
THANK YOU !

Gianmarco Ierardi 3/29/20 Gianmarco Ierardi 3/29/20

Our Q Grader experience

About the course:

“The Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) designed the Q Grader program to create a skilled and credible body of specialty coffee cuppers. The role of these cuppers is to consistently and accurately assess coffee quality, both cup and grade, as a part of its Q Coffee System.”

About the course:

It is a 6 day course broken up into theory, practice and examinations consisting of twenty individual tests that must be passed in order to qualify for certification. The first couple of days are all theory and calibration. You get a good understanding of what the exams will be like and a base point of the coffees.

The journey

In 2019 my wife, Veronica, and I had the opportunity to sit the Q grader course. It was held at 5 Senses Training Academy in Melbourne, AU, taught by instructor Ben Bicknell.

Everything started, more then a year earlier, while sitting at the 5 senses stand, enjoying a beautiful coffee tasting experience, during MICE ( Melbourne international coffee expo ). We where talking and there we decided one day we would attend the “Q grader” course.

Few months after MICE, on December 13, Veronica was handing me, what was my birthday present. Was the “ Le Nez Du Cafè” aroma kit and Organic acids kit. From there we started to train daily covering as many topics as we could. End of march, 5 Senses released the “Q grader” dates. Although the price of the course was intimidating, being around 2900$ per person, we immediately booked our spots and we were in.

It was a mentally challenging experience. Everyone’s tip is to face it for what it is, a course, where you will learn heaps and whether you will pass it or not surely you will walk out being a better taster. In reality is not as simple as that.

It’s a big effort in terms of money, time and energy. As the week goes on, the intensity raises to another level. It becomes harder and harder to taste and stay focused. We found the hardest exams were the sensory component ( Sweet, sour, salt ), organic acids was another tough one, washed mild triangulation being very tricky for the similarities among the cups.

We both pass during week one, along with Alex ( Roaster for Rumble coffee roaster ) and we were extremely happy and proud for that.

Challenges

The biggest challenge we have had was to have never cupped with a Q grader before in order to calibrate ourselves. Our role within the coffee industry was “head baristas”, while most of the people attending the “Q” are already working in “QC” ( quality control ) or within a roastery, cupping lots of coffees every day. However for the more experienced one sometimes can be hard to calibrate following different standards.

The biggest advantage we have had was ourselves. During our experience within the coffee industry from day 1 we literally spend every single day trying to learn new things. We kept studying, practicing visiting cafes and more especially after working hours. As a couple we kept pushing each other and did countless hours of training and calibration. A month before the “Q grader” we met a beautiful person, now close friend of us, which was too going to attend the course and we teamed up intensifying even further our Training program.

The tests

Green Grading

You are given 3 x 350g green coffee samples that have been tainted with a certain number defects. The aim is to identify the defects and then correctly name the type of defect it is.

Cupping Skills

The core exams of the Q Grader course. Evaluating 4 flights (Naturals, Milds, Africa, Asia) using the SCA form. Each flight contains 6 coffees. The whole cupping session will be run exclusively by you and the other attendees, therefore working as a team is key.

Olfactory Skills

Olfactory skills tests uses the Le Nez du Cafe scent vial kit. I found that each kit was quite different in intensity and some off them were totally off as well which made this test very tricky. The aim is to recognise all thirty six aromatic scents often found in the fragrance and aroma of coffee.

Triangulation Skills

Triangulation tests are designed to increase your sensitivity in the differences of coffee characteristics. Test subjects must taste and identify the one different cup in each set of three for six sets in each test for purposes of quality control.

Organic Acids

Firstly you will be introduced to each of the six primary acid components of coffee. However, only four will be present in the test ours were Citric, Acetic, Phosphoric and Malic. In the exam you are asked to match and name the pairs. Eight sets of four cups of brewed coffee are placed on a table; participants must identify which two coffees have been fortified with one of the common acids in each set and which ones are plain, as well as name the acid. This was one of the hardest tests of all, on top of that the cups were very lightly tainted therefore the presence of acids was not as obvious, also the reference was not as mild and diluted as we were expecting.

Sensory Skills

Test subjects must identify three intensities of salt, sour and sweet odorless solutions individually and when combined in mixtures.

Part I: Reference – Participants are provided three samples (low, medium, high) of each taste group (salt, sour, sweet) which must be ranked by intensity.
Part II: Blind Identification – All nine sample solutions are provided blind and must be identified by group and intensity.
Part III: Mixture Set – Subjects are provided with eight mixtures of samples containing either two or three base solutions. Students must correctly identify the number, type and intensity of base solutions in each mixture.

Easy to say that this is the test everyone's fear !

Roasted Coffee Grading

Probably one of the easiest tests in the course. You must correctly identify the number of quakers which are underdeveloped beans that do not roast properly.

Sample Roast Identification

Test subjects are given four trays of coffee; one of the trays meets SCA Cupping Protocol specifications and the other three are either unacceptable as, Under-develop, Baked or Over-roasted / dark. Participants must correctly identify each sample.

General Knowledge

The general knowledge exam is the only completely written test, consisting of 100 multiple choice questions about coffee cultivation, harvesting, processing, cupping, grading, roasting and brewing.

Here 11 tips that helped us get through the week:

Stay calm
Do not second guess yourself
Use all the senses
Do not over cup
Stay well hydrated
Do not drink alcohol
Avoid eating food heavily spiced, salted or with lot of garlic and onion
Do not wear perfumes or cologne
Enjoy the experience
Get enough sleep
Take lots of notes

If you would like to have a chat regarding in-depth details, tips, training methods and routines in preparation to the “Q grader” hit the “learn more” button now.