You're Probably Drinking Your Coffee Wrong — Here's the Right Way to Sip Your Favorite Morning Drink

Believe it or not, finding a better coffee that suits your palate can start with a glass of wine.

It’s not exactly fair to blame coffee for the way in which we typically consume it — lukewarm after a meeting that runs longer than anticipated, or even worse, out of a styrofoam cup that imparts a weird, artificial flavor that only exacerbates the nauseating effect of gas station fumes. Wine, on the other hand, gets the VIP treatment alongside a carefully cooked meal, or as part of a tasting menu prepared by a chef and sommelier duo who have taken pains to ensure that a rich scallop dish arrives with a generous pour of Chardonnay, or that a venison stew is served with a glass of Petite Sirah.

Despite the uneven playing field, there’s a surprising amount you can learn about how to find coffee that suits your palate from how you should taste wine. “We focus on five taste categories which are represented in each cup: sweetness, body, acidity, flavor, and finish,” explains Ben Brewer, senior director for global innovation and quality at Blue Bottle Coffee, who also recently developed a buzzy Ethiopian blend in collaboration with the Weeknd. Brewer’s five categories are all qualities I was asked to pay close attention to when I went through level three of the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET), which focuses on teaching students how to identify and evaluate wines (and has a blind tasting portion on the final examination, for which you need to share your notes on these categories for each wine).

Related: How to Make 6 Barista-Quality Espresso Drinks at Home

To properly taste coffee, it’s important to have the right dose of grinds to water — Josey Markiewicz, senior director of coffee quality and training for La Colombe, tells me that the industry standard is a 1/17 ratio, and that you should make sure your grind particle size matches your dose. “It should look something like Kosher salt,” she explains. “Not too coarse, not too fine.” Once the coffee is ground, Markiewicz says to take a moment to inhale the dry fragrance — I like to think of this akin to the primary aromas you’d get from that first sniff after you’ve swirled around a glass of wine. “Use water straight off the boil and water each cup quickly. Take a moment to smell the wet aroma of the coffee grounds. You should then allow the coffee to steep for four minutes before breaking the crust — this is the moment when you push the grounds down into the cup with a spoon while inhaling the spirit of the coffee trapped underneath,” she says.

Just as some wines take time to open up in your glass or in a decanter, you’ll want to let your coffee cool for a bit after this initial sniffing process. At around the ten minute mark, you can begin tasting. This is done by putting just a little bit of coffee into a spoon and vigorously slurping, and if you’ve ever been to a professional wine tasting and heard the noise sommeliers make when they taste wine, you’ll recognize the parallel when you hear it. Just like with tasting wine, this process with coffee is so the liquid is sprayed throughout the entirety of the mouth. “This ensures that you are allowing yourself to taste the coffee with every nook and cranny of your gustatory perception,”  Markiewicz says. Be sure to revisit each cup every couple minutes, just as you would a glass of wine at the end of a tasting or flight. It's uncanny how much a coffee will seemingly change character as it cools, just as many wines will after they’re poured.

Related: 15 Rules for Great Wine and Food Pairings

Once you start noticing a wine’s acidity — that mouth watering sensation you get after sipping a crisp Sauvignon Blanc or Riesling, or how the notes from a Cabernet Sauvignon linger on your palate after you’ve finished off your glass, it’s impossible to avoid passing judgment on whether or not you like those aspects of the wine. “Not all sweetness is enjoyable, and not all acidity is unenjoyable. Asking yourself whether a characteristic you’ve observed is positive or negative — and to what degree — is a powerful part of tasting,” says Brewer.

Keeping those wine preferences in mind when you shop for coffee can be a helpful way to determine whether or not that $22 bag of coffee is worth adding to your cart. For example, light roasts tend to have more acidity than dark roasts, which might also have more body and a longer finish. “Sometimes we are looking for balance, sometimes we are looking for something a little more out of the ordinary,” notes Markiewicz. “Either way, we are tasting for deliciousness.”

For more Food & Wine news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on Food & Wine.