A wine taster isn't born—they're made
What makes a good cup of coffee?
For years, the answer seemed simple: a high score. However, anyone who has participated in a coffee tasting knows that the reality is much more complex. The same coffee can elicit different opinions depending on who tastes it, where it is tasted, or even when it is tasted.
The question is: How can we evaluate coffee rigorously without relying solely on personal taste? The answer lies in sensory analysis.
Much more than just finding tasting notes
It is the discipline that allows us to evaluate a product using our senses in a structured way, following methodologies and protocols designed to reduce bias and increase consistency.
In other words: we train our senses to become a more reliable measuring tool. It’s not just about saying what we like. It’s about understanding what we’re perceiving and being able to communicate it accurately.
As Ivette Vera, director of The Nomad Academy, explains: "For a long time, it seemed that coffee tasting was all about identifying notes in a cup. Today I understand that identifying notes is actually the end result of a much more complex process."
How We Got Here
The way coffee is evaluated has changed significantly in recent decades. For a long time, evaluation focused primarily on identifying defects. The goal was to determine whether a coffee met minimum quality standards.
Later came scoring systems and standardized evaluation sheets. The industry began to develop a common language that made it possible to compare coffees from different origins and markets.
This model represented a major step forward, but it also highlighted an obvious reality: two people could rate the same cup of coffee differently. Culture, prior experience, and personal preferences continued to play a significant role in the evaluation.
The New Paradigm
In recent years, the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) has promoted a new way of understanding coffee evaluation. The goal is no longer simply to assign a score. We now make a clear distinction between two fundamental aspects:
On the one hand, there is descriptive evaluation, which seeks to objectively describe the characteristics of a coffee using shared references and methodologies. On the other hand, there is affective or subjective evaluation, which takes into account the personal preferences of the taster from the target market for that coffee.
It seems like a small difference, but it completely changes the conversation. Because your favorite coffee doesn't necessarily have to be the one with the highest score. And that's okay.
For Ivette, this has been one of the most important changes in the new system: "The coffee I like best doesn't necessarily have to be the one with the highest score. And I think that's a very positive thing. It allows me to see coffee as a product with unique characteristics and not just as a number."
Learn to describe before you learn to grade
One of the most interesting changes in the current system is that it focuses on description. Before looking for specific notes, we need to build references.
What do we mean by “citrusy”? How intense is it? How does it compare to other attributes? Tools like the World Coffee Research Sensory Lexicon allow us to work with shared references and develop a more precise vocabulary.
The goal is not to identify as many flavors as possible. The goal is to be able to accurately describe a coffee’s character and convey it.
A wine taster isn't born; a wine taster is made
Many people come to a wine tasting thinking their palate isn't trained enough. The reality is that nobody starts out knowing everything.
Like any other skill, sensory evaluation requires practice, methodology, and training.
As an instructor, Ivette often encounters students who believe they lack the sensitivity needed for wine tasting. “I like to convey to my students that their opinion matters. But I also explain to them that an opinion and a technical evaluation aren’t exactly the same thing. We all start out tasting based on our personal preferences. With training, methodology, and practice, that opinion becomes well-founded.”
Over time, the senses become more acute, new points of reference emerge, and perceptions become more consistent.
Sensitivity matters. But so does technique. And above all, judgment. Ivette often sums up this idea with a phrase she repeats frequently in her courses: "A wine taster isn't born—a wine taster is made."
Would you like to learn more about sensory analysis?
If you're interested in understanding how we evaluate coffee today and developing tools to taste it more critically, this summer we're offering two training courses focused on sensory analysis at The Nomad Academy.
A practical introduction to training the senses and understanding the fundamentals of sensory evaluation.