Tasting Guide™ 03 – Using the Guide at home
Say hello to the Graph Visualizer
The Tasting Guide™ Graph Visualizer is the simplest expression of everything we’ve explored so far in this series. It offers an aid to brief understanding of any given Tasting Guide™ by separating the chart into four quadrants.
As a review, left and right represent where a note lives: palate on the left, nose on the right. Top and bottom represent intensity: strong at the top, subtle toward the bottom.
This tool exists to help you observe your cup in motion, sip by sip, quadrant by quadrant.
In practice, let us examine a classic washed geisha with the utilization of the Graph Visualizer:
The visualizer helps us easily understand the placement of each corresponding impression. Examine Mandarin Cup's bright agave impression, number seven, being high on the upper left quadrant shows us it is to be expected as strong and primarily on the tongue. In contrast, number two: the coffee's general citric nature, is primarily on the nose as a more subtle factor, lands itself towards the bottom right quadrant as less bright and more aroma-forward. Lastly, for numbers occupying towards the center: these demonstrate themselves to be most prevalent on both the nose and the tongue - typically being the most prevalent and clear, especially the higher on the chart they land vertically. As a general rule: the further distance in either quadrant from the center the number is, the more discerning of a palate it will take to experience said impression.
While we admire the eagerness to explore coffees upon arrival, allowing them to rest for at least twenty days offers the clearest window into their character—and gives you the best chance at experiencing an accurate and expressive Tasting Guide™.
Finally, we strategically leave margin at the bottom of every Tasting Guide for your own discovery. As you brew, regardless of brew medium, chart your own impressions. Doing so not only increases your understanding of the guide, but also increases your understanding of the coffee and the disciplines it requires to brew it properly. Of course utilization of the Tasting Guide is voluntary - yet in doing so, you create a personal archive of sorts. A history of an interaction with a living constellation of compounds, molecules and craftsmanship through complex human anatomy.
It's far more than just flavor notes on a bag.
