What is a good cup of coffee?

Drinking coffee is actually similar to tasting tea, which pays attention to aroma, flavor and mouthfeel. Its peak experience is like a symphony of taste, with rich layers, gentle ups and downs, and a long aftertaste, but this requires long-term and deliberate practice. There is no need to be daunted, as eating experience is universal, and ordinary people can still perceive the quality of a cup of good coffee.

Chief Writer/Yang Lu

Chinese people are drinking coffee more and more frequently, and those consumers who value quality are also willing to learn about coffee (Photo by Cai Xiaochuan)

We are attracted, but still strangers

As a nation that drinks tea, we have a basis for accepting coffee. Its tasting is similar to that of tea, which is divided into aroma, taste and mouthfeel.

If you have ordered hand-brewed coffee in a cafe like me, you will have a deeper experience. I want a cup of Bourbon coffee produced in Paradise Estate, Colombia, which is processed by double anaerobic fermentation. The barista first brought a container and asked me to smell the dry coffee powder. It was a kind of yogurt mixed with cheese. Then, she started to brew in front of me. As the water was slowly poured in, the top layer of coffee powder swelled up, and a distinct strawberry smell wafted out. After brewing, the barista asked me to pour it into a cup to taste. There is still an aroma in the liquid, which is a strawberry yogurt flavor. When the temperature of the liquid drops, it becomes a cherry flavor. The taste of the coffee liquid is very smooth and thick, just like sucking a cup of brown-red jelly with a high liquid content. This is created by oil, carbohydrates, fiber and colloid. The same contrasting experience can be found in drinking tea. We always evaluate whether the tea soup is thin or thick, which comes from whether the tea leaves are rich in substances that can be dissolved in water.

Coffee has a rich aroma. Scientists have extracted more than 800 chemical components from roasted coffee beans, one third of which are aromatic substances. Its aroma is far more mellow than wine, vanilla, sesame and cocoa. "Coffee is richer than tea, and it is difficult for tea to enter the coffee drinking market. In Japan, which has a tea drinking habit, the consumption of coffee was comparable to that of tea in 1990. In the past few years, tea drinking in the UK was also surpassed by coffee." said Zhu Xuesong, general manager of Milan Gold Coffee.

The contrast between coffee and tea has always made the coffee industry feel that Chinese taste buds are a huge opportunity. When Zhu Xuesong joined the coffee industry in 1995, Milan Gold was still a state-owned enterprise with an import and export background. It had been three years since Deng Xiaoping's "Southern Tour", and China's openness was exciting. He said that at the time, public opinion believed that we would soon accept the Western lifestyle. Europeans are also very confident in coffee and believe that China will definitely be the world's largest coffee market in the future. "This statement is not wrong, but how many years will it take in the future? I thought it would be five or six years," said Zhu Xuesong.

In fact, until last year, according to data from the International Coffee Organization, the average Chinese person consumed only 5 to 6 cups of coffee per year, while the average European and American person consumed 300 cups, and the average Japanese person consumed 200 cups.

In the past, spending power was a factor that prevented Chinese people from drinking coffee. Zhu Xuesong's clients were all the most high-end hotels and restaurants in Beijing. This was a "forced" business path. He said that at that time, he couldn't sell roasted coffee beans to others because they would not accept them. In the early days, only Maxim's Western Restaurant in Beijing had espresso machines. At the peak, his clients included more than 300 of the best hotels and restaurants in Beijing, but they only consumed 70 kilograms of coffee per month. The big customers had to be high-end hotels. The first one was the Asia Hotel near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which sold 50 kilograms of coffee a month. The main customers there were foreigners.

The quality was not as good as it is now, and it was difficult to drink good coffee. In 2002, Yuan Huiguo's Japanese parent company established Jialumen Trading Co., Ltd. in Shanghai, intending to develop coffee trade in China. In order to promote the concept of fresh roasting, he bought a bag of coffee beans from Shangdao Coffee and Starbucks, and asked coffee lovers to compare. "After they smelled Shangdao Coffee, they thought it was very fragrant. After they smelled Starbucks, they thought it was very fragrant. Then they smelled ours, and they wondered why the aroma was different. I taught them what was choked and what was oxidized." Yuan Huiguo said.

Coffee is a cherry-like fruit. After picking the red coffee berries, the peel, pulp and pectin layer are removed after post-processing, and the seed shell wrapped outside is ground off to obtain blue-green or yellow-green coffee beans. Coffee beans are shipped from Central America, Africa, Asia and other production areas to consumer markets around the world. After being roasted to varying degrees, they become the familiar coffee beans ranging from light brown, brown to dark brown. At that time, Chinese coffee shops also advertised their professionalism by hanging the red logo of the Italian coffee brand illy. Its coffee beans and coffee powder had a shelf life of two years. People did not understand the production chain of coffee, nor did they pay attention to the effect of fresh roasting on aroma and taste.

In such a poor soil, there are still people who are attracted to coffee. Ye Weiwei, the Chinese champion of the 2017 World Coffee Roasting Competition, said that when he was in college, he went to work in a coffee shop. It was a Taiwanese-style coffee shop with chess and card tables and private rooms, and used siphon pots. He learned to make coffee from the master and found it very interesting. The black coffee at that time was completely different from now, because the coffee beans were not good due to the age. But he still felt that the aroma and taste were very different from the first contact.

Ye Weiwei, the 2017 World Coffee Roasting Competition China Champion (Photo by Cai Xiaochuan)

These people are not satisfied with the types of coffee provided in coffee shops, and even buy green beans to roast themselves. Wei Lingpeng, an international judge and coach of the World Barista Championship, opened a coffee shop on Yandaixie Street in Houhai in 2004. In addition to doing business, he also likes to drink coffee, but there were very few varieties of coffee beans available on the market at that time. He later met Yuan Huiguo in Shanghai, and through this channel, he got a lot of green coffee beans that were introduced for the first time or rare in the Chinese market at that time.

People like Wei Lingpeng even formed a group of coffee enthusiasts online to share coffee knowledge and green beans with each other. Gu Qinru, head of Latorre Dutch Green Bean Company in Greater China, said: "In the early days, coffee enthusiasts existed in the form of interest groups, which were no different from handmade leather goods hobby groups." She split the green beans into small packages of one kilogram and sold them to these people, but was opposed by the company headquarters. Because overseas, Latorre Dutch is a large company that has cooperated with Starbucks, and this approach makes them feel that they have become a small company that only serves home roasting. Gu Qinru said that only enthusiasts in the Chinese market will buy coffee beans and use hand nets and home roasters with a pot of several hundred grams to try various conditions of coffee roasting. At the peak, she developed five to six thousand people.

Wei Lingpeng, international coffee competition judge and coach, and SOECOFFEE owner (Photo by Huang Yu)

But now, coffee has a kind of "wait and see" feeling for Chinese taste buds. Chinese people drink coffee more and more frequently. British consulting firm Mintel has been tracking China's coffee shops and coffee market. From last year to this year's report, the number of people who frequent coffee shops and the number of people who don't frequent coffee shops have increased, which shows that the popularity of coffee drinking is increasing. There is no obvious difference in the distribution of high-frequency people in different cities. It is not only first-tier cities that drink coffee, but the drinking frequency in lower-tier cities is catching up.

Just like the consumption upgrade in every field in China, the coffee field is also experiencing consumption upgrade. The market share of traditional instant coffee is decreasing, and people want to drink healthier and better-tasting coffee. Therefore, the purchase rate of freshly brewed coffee and ready-to-drink coffee has increased, and drip coffee and new instant coffee with high taste restoration also have a place. The report noted that consumers who value the quality of coffee are also willing to take the initiative to learn about coffee. This consumption behavior is not cold data and tables, but can also be felt in daily life. Wei Lingpeng started to launch coffee tasting training in Beijing in 2006. He said that at that time, 95% of the students signed up to open a coffee shop, but now basically 50% of the students in each class have nothing to do with opening a shop, just like someone goes to learn to taste red wine, they come to learn tasting and brewing coffee just because they are particularly interested.

In April this year, I attended the Shanghai Coffee Expo. This exhibition, which was originally for the industry, attracted many coffee lovers. I saw them asking questions to the world champions of coffee competitions at the exhibition: How can you brew coffee as well as they do? Many people also asked experts on different occasions: How can you tell the origin and flavor of a cup of coffee in one sip, and how can you understand a cup of coffee? These questions are too grand and cannot be explained in a few words. You can feel the audience's interest in coffee, but also see their lack of knowledge about coffee.

We now have the ability to pay and many channels to buy coffee. So, it's time to understand what makes a good cup of coffee.

The starting point of a good cup of coffee

If you walk into a coffee shop, you will often see "Ethiopia, Guji, Hambera, Oiran", "Colombia, Paradise Estate, Pink Bourbon", "Panama, Emerald Estate, Gesha" and so on on the menu. These names of origins and varieties and the information behind them are unfamiliar to us, but they are the starting point for a good cup of coffee. Li Zhen, the champion of the Chinese region of the World Barista Competition from 2017 to 2019 and a roaster, said that a good cook cannot cook without rice. If the green coffee beans do not have these flavors, they cannot be made through later roasting and extraction. A 100-point green bean that is roasted to 80 points and extracted to 60 points is also better than a 60-point green bean.

Coffee beans from different production areas and processing methods have different aromas and flavors, which is the driving force for people to constantly look for new beans, special beans, and coffee beans that are more suitable for coffee growing areas. For example, in Ethiopia, the coffee from Yirgacheffe is famous for its unique floral and citrus flavors. In the Blue Mountain of Jamaica, the coffee has a subtle fragrance and sweetness. Brazilian coffee beans have a sweet and fruity flavor mixed with mango, longan, hazelnut, etc., mixed with pectin. The cup of bourbon grown in Paradise Manor in Colombia that I ordered at the beginning of the article was processed in a special way, so it exudes a distinct strawberry yogurt flavor.

Drinking coffee means drinking coffee beans. Although there are many ways to extract coffee, using this purpose to divide it is actually a single product or a blend of complex flavors. "Ethiopia, Guji, Hambela, Oiran" means that it is grown in Hambela, a sub-region of Guji, the largest coffee producing region in Ethiopia. Oiran is the name given to this coffee variety by the Chinese. Since the identity information is listed, what you drink is its regional flavor. The usual practice is to lightly roast this raw bean to retain its red wine, peach, strawberry and black tea aftertaste. In order not to cover up these flavors, milk is usually not added.

If blended coffee has its own flavor, it can still be identified in the blend. Zhang Yinzhe, the Chinese champion of the 2017 World Barista Championship, used blended beans in the competition. Zhang Yinzhe said: "At that time, a Geisha was used. This raw bean variety has a great fruity flavor, but the body is low. So I added an Ethiopian bean, which has a bright citrus flavor and high purity, which improves the overall body of the coffee. While retaining the characteristics of the two bean producing areas, just like sprinkling pepper on a dish to enhance the flavor, I added a specially processed bean, which has the flavor of banana, melon and herbs, which you can't taste in other coffees."

Although our coffee shop didn’t even know how to roast fresh coffee more than a decade ago, it has developed rapidly and has kept pace with the world’s trends. The coffee beans on each menu may be different, but there is a high probability that one of the top three most expensive coffees is called “Gesha”. Gesha has been a star in the coffee industry in the past 15 years. It became famous in the 2004 “Best of Panama” coffee bean competition. The prices of batches sold in the form of bidding and non-bidding sales have repeatedly broken records. Because it is so eye-catching, the “Best of Panama” competition even set up a separate Gesha group to compete with itself and prevent it from competing with other coffee varieties.

The Chinese name "Geisha" was translated by Jialumen Trading Co., Ltd. Yuan Huiguo said that although Geisha became famous in 2004, the information in China was blocked at that time, and he first tasted Geisha from the Japanese parent company two years later. "It has a sweet aroma of roasted sweet potatoes, and I thought something was put in it. At that time, it was very popular for Koreans to add dried fruits to coffee. Japanese colleagues told me that this was the taste of coffee itself. I had never tasted such an aroma, so I started to introduce it in December 2006. Its name Geisha is homophonic with the Japanese word for geisha, which we felt was inappropriate. Because it has a floral scent, it was later translated into Geisha." Yuan Huiguo said.

Yuan Huiguo of Kalumeng Trading Company (Photo by Jia Rui)

Although it is an emerging market, Chinese taste buds quickly grasped the key points and chased after good beans. Geisha became popular as Chinese people's interest in coffee grew. Yuan Huiguo said that at first, a Japanese company bought 5 boxes, Taiwan bought 3 boxes, and he imported the remaining 2 boxes to the mainland and sold them at a very low price. "It's useless to raise the price. At that time, this kind of coffee beans was only tasted by enthusiasts, and very few were actually sold in stores." But by 2011, not only did Geisha appear in coffee shops in the mainland, but it also directly participated in international bidding, even the Panama Emerald Manor, which is the most famous Geisha variety. Wei Lingpeng was one of the first people to sell Geisha coffee in the mainland. His old shop is on Yandaixie Street, with a large flow of people and strong purchasing power. Wei Lingpeng said: "Several of our companies, some from Taiwan and some from the mainland, formed a team to bid. In the early days, one pound was more than ten or twenty US dollars. We kept bidding until the year before last, and it had risen to more than 100 US dollars per pound."

The overall demand for coffee in China is small, but they like expensive beans. Gu Qinru said that when some really great coffee flavors were detected abroad, green bean buyers from other countries simply gave up. They would also say that the flavor is great and tastes good, but such a price is not easy to sell in their country. In markets where coffee is regarded as a daily drink and almost everyone drinks coffee every day, people will not pay for a better flavor and a higher price. But for many Chinese people, coffee is now like red wine, which belongs to the category of tasting, and they are willing to buy some higher-grade beans. "Friends often say that they recently bid for a certain coffee or a certain red wine, and then take it out to share with everyone." Gu Qinru said.

Even if you know nothing about coffee and want to drink a good cup of coffee, if the menu says it is award-winning beans, auction batch beans, or beans with a higher price, it does mean that the beans are of good quality. The coffee bean pricing system is a very mature business system, and the price does reflect the quality. Gu Qinru said that in the current coffee pricing system, the price of coffee in the previous year is used to determine the price of coffee in the second year, or the price of international auctions is used as a reference. People all over the world want to buy those award-winning coffee beans and famous estates, so the price is naturally high.

But if you just want to drink a cup of good coffee, pursuing expensive coffee beans is not the only solution. Geisha is famous for the Emerald Manor, but Yuan Huiguo has not bought any in recent years. An experienced old bean hunter like him only trusts the taste after the samples are sent and cupping is performed. He said that the quality of agricultural products is affected by many factors such as weather, rain, and processing technology. For example, although the Geisha of the Emerald Manor is very famous, it has lost the sweet aroma of roasted sweet potatoes due to excessive rain. There are still many unknown but high-quality beans. Yuan Huiguo said: "Some beans from some manors are actually not bad, but they are often not rated high for some reasons, so the price is cheap. The taste of our cupping is very good, so we import a large amount, which is considered to be a bargain." Guatemala and Panama have manors where his company first started in China. Now they have become famous manors, and the price of coffee beans is getting higher and higher.

Because of the development of e-commerce in China and the Chinese taste buds' interest in identifying aromas, there are new ways to play. Gu Qinru's company has launched a "Cheetah Project" in China, selecting beans with special flavors but small production that cannot be included in the large-scale green bean procurement list, and selling them online. Gu Qinru said that the "Cheetah Project" does not want the price of beans to be particularly high, but to find some special batches or green beans with experimental processing methods. Almost only 200 to 300 kilograms of one kind of beans. Everyone believes in our cupping flavor, and the highest record of 300 kilograms of green beans was sold out in one second after it was put on the shelf.

A cup of coffee is made from raw beans, roasted into mature beans, and then extracted (Photo by Cai Xiaochuan)

The structure that determines the quality of a cup of coffee

To have a good cup of coffee, raw beans are important, but they still need to be roasted and extracted before they can become the cup of coffee in front of you. For example, the barista competition is about who makes the best coffee. Wei Lingpeng said that if expensive raw beans can get high scores in the barista competition, then there will be no competition. Everyone can just buy expensive beans. In this year's China competition, some people used beans that cost five or six thousand yuan per kilogram, but they did not necessarily get the highest score. A cup of espresso involves many links, which will ultimately affect whether it is a good cup of coffee.

Our discussions and yearning for coffee online often come from the stories of poetry and distant places told by the owners of famous coffee shops, from the fashionable outfits of baristas, and from the aesthetic utensils and space design. In fact, the determining factors of a good cup of coffee are in the invisible backstage links. Ye Weiwei, the champion of the 2017 World Coffee Roasting Competition in China, said that the quality of raw beans accounts for 40% of the proportion of good coffee, roasted beans account for 30%, coffee machines, grinders, water quality, etc. together account for 20%, and the role of baristas accounts for 10%. Everyone in the industry may have different expressions, but it is a consensus that the quality of raw beans and roasted beans together determine the fundamentals of a cup of coffee.

This is like a cup of famous tea, which has the advantages of time and place in the core production area, as well as the exquisite skills of the tea maker. Our interview with Ye Weiwei was scheduled at the side of the field of this year's China Coffee Roasting Competition. The air was filled with the smell of fried peanuts. The contestants stood in front of the roasters lined up, staring at the computers connected to the roasters. Compared with the elegant floral and fruity notes in coffee tasting, and the quiet and beautiful atmosphere in the pictures of life aesthetics, the real coffee roasting scene, although very hardcore, seems too boring. Ye Weiwei said: "The flavor and aroma are determined by the raw beans, such as the aroma of peaches, oranges, and citrus in a cup of coffee. The balance of thickness, sourness, sweetness and bitterness is determined by roasting. In layman's terms, part of the aroma of coffee is smelled by the nose, and part is felt in the mouth. The taste felt in the mouth is determined by roasting. Is it uncomfortable acrid acetic acid, or sour and sweet, is it burnt bitter, bitter or bitter and sweet like dark chocolate, it all depends on the roasting technique."

Roasting is actually a complex chemical reaction of many substances in coffee beans. Unlike "making tea by looking at it" which depends entirely on the subjective judgment of the tea maker, coffee is a beverage of industrial civilization. The condition of coffee beans can be tested with a coffee bean moisture density tester. According to these parameters of the beans, the coffee roaster designs the roasting strategy. The roasting machine is connected to the computer software, and all operations are accurate to 1°C. The roasting result is also determined by a coffee roasting colorimeter, rather than estimating by looking at whether the roasted beans are light brown, brown or brown with the naked eye.

Important roasting parameters are all controlled by machines, and roasting is still a "easy to learn but difficult to master" thing. Ye Weiwei said that roasters must have knowledge of chemistry and must understand English, because many professional documents on coffee roasting are in English. In addition to these basic preparations, there is a lot of roasting practice. Ye Weiwei said that roasting 1,000 pots is probably the entry level, and roasting 10,000 pots is probably more mature. However, the particularity of coffee roasting is that it is impossible to learn hard and practice. Raw beans have costs, and roasted beans have the best tasting period. The premise for roasters to practice is that these roasted beans can be sold. "The world champion of my year was Italian, and his family ran a coffee shop. His parents' decades of roasting experience, combined with his experience, is something we can't compare to. You see, I usually have time to walk around, which means that I don't have that much business in roasting roasted beans, and the demand for coffee in China is not high." Ye Weiwei said.

With the purchasing power of the mainland market, top-quality raw beans are easy to obtain, but roasting experience is lacking. In order to make a good cup of coffee, Ye Weiwei came up with a solution to cooperate with Hu Yuanzheng of Taiwan's Taoxuan Coffee. Hu Yuanzheng has been a judge at the World Coffee Roasting Competition and has rich roasting experience. He shipped the selected raw beans to the mainland for Ye Weiwei to roast. The conditions of these raw beans and the experience of how to roast them were passed on to Ye Weiwei. In order to practice, Ye Weiwei also participates in coffee roasting competitions every year. He said that because the roasted beans are usually used for sale, they are all high-quality raw beans. With a good foundation, the requirements for roasting technology are not high. But there will be obstacles in the competition. For example, the topic of this year's competition is to blend three kinds of beans, one of which is a poor-quality bean that sells for 30 yuan. How to roast such beans to make up for the shortcomings and balance the taste is a test.

For coffee drinkers, if you want to drink a good cup of coffee, you need to pay attention to the source of the roasted coffee beans. More professional coffee shops have already done this in their articles. In addition to describing the decoration of the coffee shop and the personality and experience of the barista, they will also spend time introducing the roasting process or the source of the roasted beans. Some well-known domestic coffee teams have created roasting brands and sell roasted beans to coffee shops through the Internet and stores. Ye Weiwei's coffee beans are supplied to Shanghai White Bird Coffee House. He said that the owner of the coffee shop is a student who learned roasting from him and has his own roasting machine. He does not roast at home, but buys beans from him and other mature roasters. There are also some consumers who are interested in boutique coffee who have realized the importance of roasted beans. Li Zhen's team registered the Bafang brand. In addition to roasting beans, he also does Taobao customer service. He said that the customers who often buy are very professional. Everyone will discuss terms such as roasting degree and extraction parameters, and there are also small circles to share with each other.

Chinese coffee shops started late, but are now developing rapidly (Photo by Cai Xiaochuan)

Drink a good cup of coffee

A derivative question of what constitutes a good cup of coffee is: "Can Chinese people tell whether coffee is good or bad?"

Good coffee has objective standards given by the industry's scoring system, but as a drink, it also has subjective preferences. "Sour" is the barrier for many Chinese people to enter the world of coffee. There is sourness in the taste of coffee, and it pays attention to the balance of sourness, sweetness and bitterness, especially the popular light roasting, which has a more obvious sour taste. Chinese taste buds do not appreciate sourness. I interviewed Ding Shuai, a partner of the chocolate brand "Reindeer". He is the developer of Master Kong's popular product "Miaofu" cake and has a good understanding of public preferences. He said that Chinese people do not appreciate the layered sense of sourness like Westerners, so those bitter and obviously sour high cocoa content chocolates in China are very niche, and the best-selling ones are always sweet milk chocolates. The obvious difference can be seen at international coffee competitions. Wei Lingpeng said: "The acidity that Chinese people like is relatively low. When I went to participate in the world competition, I found that the roasting degree of other contestants was much lighter than ours, and the acidity extracted from the beans was much higher."

Acidity is a key factor for coffee. Yuan Huiguo said that after the acidity is deepened through roasting, the concentration of coffee will come out, so a cup of coffee with high concentration must have high acidity, such as Kenyan, Guatemalan, Mandheling and other coffees. However, there are many types of acidity. Whether it is a sharp sourness that hurts your teeth or a soft sourness, it distinguishes the quality of boutique coffee. Acidity must be based on sweetness, such as malic acid, citrus acid, plum acid, etc. Sour and sweet are the tastes that are easy for people to accept.

I attended a sharing session at Oushe Coffee. Manager Xu Baolin has been visiting coffee producing areas for more than ten years and has also been a judge for many international green bean competitions and barista competitions. He played a game with everyone, asking the audience to vote for their favorite cup after tasting coffee No. 1 and coffee No. 2. When the answer was revealed, the berries used to make the first cup of coffee were green and had leaf rust, which is not the raw material for good coffee. The berries used to make the second cup of coffee were cherry red, which is the basis of high-quality coffee.

80% of the people voted for the second cup. Although both cups were sour, I tasted the second cup of coffee and it had a lingering aftertaste, was slightly fragrant, and had a smooth taste. Xu Baolin said that he started playing this game at sharing sessions in 2006, and on average, slightly more than half of the audience could tell the quality of the coffee. "Coffee has a taste and a sense of touch in the mouth. It's like when you drink a drink and it feels astringent, or when you drink a bowl of thick soup and it feels smooth and thick. Food experience is the same. People may not be able to say the name, but they can tell the quality." Xu Baolin said.

"Speaking of the nouns" means being able to tell the origin, estate, and complex aroma after taking a sip. This is the goal pursued by coffee lovers. Fisher Coffee, founded by Zhang Rong, is the brand with the highest sales of boutique coffee on Taobao. Based on the huge sales data, she said that we are a nation of tea drinkers, and coffee must have something special to attract people. The rigid demand market is not entangled with coffee, just like we drink ration tea. If it tastes good, we will buy more, and if it doesn't taste good, we will not buy any. The Chinese market is not like this, and it is meticulous about coffee tasting. "The curve of our roaster is stable, but there are slight differences between batches of raw beans. These tiny differences can be felt by customers and they leave us messages. For example, the Ethiopian beans roasted today have high acidity, not enough sweetness, and no mellowness." Zhang Rong said.

In fact, the recognition of coffee flavor is a memory problem. Zhang Yinzhe said that the watermelons, mangoes, oranges and other fruits we eat every day actually form a memory bank of ingredients. Describing the flavor of coffee is to pair the aroma of coffee with the memory bank. For example, today you drink a very familiar flavor, and someone asks you if it is vanilla. You find that this reminder is correct, and it is indeed vanilla. People's olfactory memory is worse than their auditory memory. People who are not strong in flavor description just don't eat seriously.

Taste memory also potentially affects people's preferences. Gu Qinru's company targets both the Australian and Chinese markets. She said that the Chinese market favors Ethiopian beans, while the Australian market prefers beans from Central America. Ethiopian beans are imported at zero tariff and are relatively cheap, but another reason is that they have the flavor of tea, which Chinese people like. Coffee in the Australian market is mainly used as a side dish, and has a high requirement for sweetness. Beans from Central America are mellow and strong.

"Understanding the aroma of coffee" requires deliberate training. Even for coffee competitions, describing the flavor is a difficult task. Wei Lingpeng said that the contestants may try hard to introduce the coffee flavor comprehensively, but it is actually difficult for trained judges to recognize all of them. The judges will give different scores depending on whether they can vaguely feel it or clearly taste the flavor. Therefore, experienced contestants will ask many people to help test the coffee before going on stage. In fact, they are trying to capture the most obvious flavors and only write them down on the table card.

The overall demand for coffee among Chinese taste buds is small, but their purchasing power is strong (Photo by Cai Xiaochuan)

As for "tasting out the producing area and estate", you will definitely fall down. Xu Baolin came to Shanghai as a judge this year, and he drank a type of Honduran coffee every day. One day, watermelon frost sprayed in his mouth, and he thought the conference had changed to a domestic bean. He said that the human body will change unconsciously, and it is possible that the flavor cannot be tasted. Wei Lingpeng, who also has rich competition experience, also said: "Only typical beans, typical processing methods, and prior explanations that there are Brazilian beans, Indonesian beans, Ethiopian beans, etc., can be distinguished by people with tasting experience. There is a triangle cup test in the coffee competition. The contestants find a different cup of coffee from three cups of coffee to see who is the fastest. It is a test of olfactory sensitivity, but there is no need to tell the producing area."

If you have to face the challenge and understand coffee, you have to drink enough. Wei Lingpeng said that you can start with a few coffees with the most distinctive production areas, first drink some Ethiopian beans, drink some Colombian beans, Brazil, Indonesia, Guatemala or Panama in Central America will also work, and you will remember the taste after drinking it for a period of time. Even professionals have to go through this process. Yuan Huiguo said: "When I was studying Blue Mountain coffee, the Japanese taught us that it is light, clean-tasting, slightly soft sour, and a mellow golden liquid. I have tasted several other key words, but the word "round" has never made it out. I drank it for two or three months, stopped for a while in the middle, and then drank it again later, and I felt the "roundness" all of a sudden. The Japanese consultant said that I had a picky mouth because I drank too much, and I felt it when I compared it with other coffees."

The description of flavor does not necessarily have to follow the instructions when buying roasted beans, or the drink guide card when ordering. Even professionals need to spend time to establish a connection between a cup of coffee and their memory bank. Yuan Huiguo described the most special taste of the Gesha from Emerald Manor as "the sweet aroma of roasted sweet potatoes", and people around him joked that it was too tacky, but it did help him remember and identify this coffee, and after the taste disappeared, he could detect the changes in the quality of the raw coffee beans. Yuan Huiguo once had an Australian high mountain bean that became famous in the Chinese market. He said that when cupping, there was a very special taste, and he used the taste of Chinese rice wine to establish a memory pairing.

Because people have a strong desire to understand coffee, coffees with distinct or special flavors are popular. Zhang Rong said that in the past two years, many people around the world have been studying how coffee came from, and they found the mother species of Arabica. She bought raw beans from one of the mother species when she went to Costa Rica this time. It is very similar to green tea, which is different from the current coffee. There are a group of consumers who are interested in the past and present of coffee, and these are what they will like. In the processing stage, some special treatments are also popular because of their distinct flavors. Now many coffee shops are popular with sake-flavored and rum-flavored coffees, which are all fermented in some way during the raw bean stage. Whether or not you have practiced drinking coffee specifically, you can smell the alcohol instantly, and consumers feel very happy.

Is it okay if you don't want to be too tired and just want to have a quiet cup of coffee? Of course you can. Experienced baristas should actually lower the psychological barriers of customers when guiding them to drink. Zhang Yinzhe said that it is completely okay if you can't taste the flavor written on the card. What I am most afraid of is that the barista will say that this is a coffee with floral aromas, star fruit and the aftertaste of Earl Grey tea, which makes people crazy. In fact, the simplest introduction should be: "This coffee is different from what you usually drink. It is not as bitter as you think. It is more sour and sweet. I can't guarantee whether you can accept or like this sourness, but I can be sure that it is different from what you usually drink."

In fact, from a global perspective, half of the coffee is consumed before 10 a.m., and most of the coffee is combined with milk. Zhu Xuesong said that he has also supplied single-origin coffee since 2006, but it is a very niche market. We cannot expect everyone to have this identification ability. Coffee will exist as a beverage for a long time, and the requirements for it are cleanliness, balance and aroma. Cleanliness means no flaws and odors, and balance refers to the harmony of sour, sweet, bitter and salty, without conflict, and it tastes comfortable. Aroma is pleasant. When Zhu Xuesong was interviewed, he had a cup of coffee on hand. Looking through the glass, it was thick and transparent. He is the coffee supplier for the main venue of the 2016 G20 meeting and the hotels where leaders of various countries stayed. The G20 coffee procurement is carried out by relevant departments with rich experience in foreign affairs reception, and the selected one is an Italian espresso blend.

Zhang Yinzhe, the Chinese champion of the 2014 and 2016 World Barista Championships (Photo by Cai Xiaochuan)

Have a good cup of coffee

The pinnacle experience of good coffee is in a coffee competition like the Olympics. Du Jianing said to the judges during the World Coffee Brewing Championship, where he won the championship this year, "You can first taste red apricots and white wine, then pleasant cocoa and champagne flavors, and finally a hint of soft violets. Let's drink it again, and in the aftertaste, our taste buds can feel the white wine, apricots and violets, lingering in the mouth for a long time." When the temperature of the coffee dropped, Du Jianing said to the judges again: "This time we focus on the acidity and mellowness. The acidity of this coffee has the sweetness of grapes, and then the acidity changes from purple grapes to green grapes, with medium intensity, lively and bright. When the coffee temperature drops to room temperature, its flavor is a very prominent orange flavor. The aftertaste is like cocoa crumbs, long-lasting and clean."

Even if you just read these words, you can feel that this coffee is like a symphony of taste, with rich layers, graceful ups and downs, and a long aftertaste.

Coffee competitions are very important to improving the quality of Chinese coffee. Zhang Yinzhe, the owner of the cafe where Du Jianing works, is the Chinese champion of the World Barista Competition in 2014 and 2016. He said that he fell in love with coffee because he lives in Melbourne, where coffee level is very high. "My university and master's degree have nothing to do with the coffee industry. So, the coffee trainer said that if you want to engage in this industry, participating in the coffee competition is a good intensive education." The scoring system of the barista competition determines that if you want to win, in addition to the barista's own extraction technology, you also have to know roasting knowledge. This roasting knowledge is to select the competition beans, and you must understand the microclimate and terroir of the production area to achieve the aroma and taste you want. Barista also needs to have good tasting skills to know the direction of extraction adjustment, and the "bull's eye" with the best taste. This knowledge involves the entire coffee chain.

Zhang Yinzhe returned to China to participate in the competition and also experienced the process of China from imitating forms to understanding coffee. "In the early days, the judges and contestants didn't know how to compete, so they could only watch videos online. How did the foreign barista play the style and how the process went, and they didn't know why the details of him were doing. I just thought it would make sense, so we also learn it." Zhang Yinzhe said. Because of this background, domestic competitions are more powerful than barista's aura and whether the performance is good or not. These external forms are more important than coffee. "Around 2012, everyone began to pay attention to the coffee itself. Some contestants looked dull, but the coffee they made was delicious. That was a turning point. Since then, everyone's understanding of coffee has gone professionally, rather than looking at formal things." Zhang Yinzhe said.

As coffee becomes hot in China, the competition is becoming more and more intense. Coffee beans are very expensive, and the baristas participating in the competition must also have team support. In Nanjing, Zhang Yinzhe's team continues to send baristas in the store to participate in competitions, such as Du Jianing, who won the championship this time. Beijing's Wei Lingpeng team, Pan Zhimin, is the champion of the 2017 World Barista Competition in China, and roaster Li Zhen is the third place in the 2017 World Coffee Roasting Competition in China. Wuhan has Zhu Jingui's team won the Chinese championship in the World Barista Competition last year, and this year's championship is from Suzhou.

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Wei Lingpeng used the concrete content of the competition in coffee stores. Their new store was opened in the lobby of a joint office project in Tuanjie Lake, Beijing. There was no eye-catching sign outside the door because it was not a commercial area. The customers were either office workers around or insiders who knew the details of the team. Wei Lingpeng said that there is now a phenomenon that people use expensive beans at all costs to win the competition. Expensive beans cannot be used in the store, but milk coffee and creative coffee can reduce costs and allow customers to drink it.

After all, even if you drink the same cup of coffee made by Du Jianing with the judges, you need professional training to taste all the flavors in her lines. For example, Gu Qinru, the chief judge of this competition, is an experienced bean hunter and an international judge of the coffee bean competition.

The threshold for milk coffee and creative coffee is much lower. Wei Lingpeng's store has a coffee "Dirty Plus", which is a common type of milk coffee. It is cold milk below and hot Italian-style concentrated on it. Because of the relationship between coffee oil and density, this drink is layered. When drinking, you need to penetrate the coffee and drink the milk below, which has a taste of ice and fire. Wei Lingpeng's version uses the milk purification from Pan Zhimin's competition. Wei Lingpeng said that there is a lot of water in the milk, freeze it first and then melt it into the thickest part. This idea of ​​freezing purification comes from a German beer called Bingjie Bok, which freezes the wine and melts it again, and the concentration of the beer can be achieved to 50 degrees. The coffee made with purified milk has a stronger sweetness and thicker feeling.

Pan Zhimin, who won the national champion's creative coffee, is also on the drink list. If he happens to be in the store, he can also experience his service from making to drinking. This coffee bean is the pink bourbon of Colombian Yuanqiu Manor. It has the flavor of hops, and the team designed it with this theme. Wei Lingpeng said that the core of creative coffee is not to make a good coffee drink, but to express his understanding of this coffee based on the characteristics of the coffee beans. The specific method of champion creative coffee is to distil out the aroma from the hops and remove the bitterness. Add this hop and boiled maltose to the Italian concentrate together, and then mix it with Yunnan coffee flower honey to enhance the overall sweetness and mellowness.

Pan Zhimin will not only explain the source of creativity to customers, but also guide the taste. "Do you usually drink more espresso? If not too much, this shallow roasted bean will have a certain amount of acidity, which will feel more obvious when you drink it. It is a bit like the sourness of grapefruit. You can first recall the taste of grapefruit before drinking it, and the feeling will be more obvious." Pan Zhimin said. These service-oriented explanations are also what he wants to do to the judges during the competition.

(Intern reporter Wang Wenqing also contributed to this article)