Aging and the Taste of Coffee, History of Vietnamese Coffee, and Café Imports' Coffee Rose

• Does coffee taste different as you get older?

  By Rachel Keen for Perfect Daily Grind

  “One of the most common situations where industry professionals taste and evaluate coffees is at cuppings. However, when it comes to tasting and scoring coffees, we often overlook the influence of age. There is clear evidence that as we age, our senses of smell and taste begin to temporarily (or even permanently) change – which undoubtedly influences how we perceive coffee flavour. So, this leads us to an important question: should we account for age differences when cupping and scoring coffee?”

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• An Unfiltered History of Vietnamese Coffee

  By Emily Meneses for Barista Magazine Online

  “Today, Vietnam is primarily known for producing robusta coffee—about 95% of the nation’s coffee production is robusta—and overall, the country makes up around 40% of the world’s robusta bean production. If you’ve ever tried traditional Vietnamese coffee, you’ll know that the coffee is typically dark-roasted, then brewed in a phin filter. The coffee is sometimes infused with other ingredients like chicory or corn, and is typically mixed with condensed milk to offset the coffee’s dark and smoky flavor.”

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• A New Tool for the Cupping Kit: The Café Imports Coffee Rose Offers a New Model for Sensory Evaluation

  By Ian Fretheim for Roast Magazine

  “Two notable contributing factors to the mismatch between coffee cupping and sensory science are the former’s misapplication of the concept of quality and its lack of supporting valuation standards. Quality is not a measurable coffee attribute; it is a judgment that humans apply to coffee attributes. Think of it like this: A coffee cupper (with the proper training and experience) can tell you if a coffee’s acidity is predominantly citric or malic, and again how intense that acidity is; however, determining the quality of those acids at given intensities or in various contexts is a different order of procedure that requires active value judgment and decision making.”

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