The power of heat!

How temperature tampers with taste.

Disclaimer

So, this topic took some real research to get a clear answer and even meant reading through papers written by the American National Library of Medicine! Although I’ve seen sources posing the opposite, I feel confident in the information provided by the above source to take it as proven.

Tasting coffee at different temperatures

Overall, the main difference in taste that you’ll experience when drinking coffee is when the drink changes from hot to cool/cold. The way your taste buds work is that when experiencing hot drinks, they perceive the heat as increased bitterness and sweetness, this causes hot coffee to taste more bitter/ intense until it cools.

Colder = Less taste

Cold temperatures naturally have an opposing effect on your taste buds, the colder the drink/ experience your taste buds sense, the less sensitive they are to receipting flavours as information. This explains why ice cream is nice when consumed in its solid state but abit too sweet when its melted, the sweetness is dulled by the cold temperature!

The Goldielock zone

In-between the above two points, there’s an optimum temperature for coffee to be drank for taste, which contrary to many people who ask for extra hot drinks, is not actually very hot.

Taste buds get confused both in high and low temperatures causing different taste experiences. The ideal drink temperature is just around body temperature which is 36.5-37.5 Degrees Celsius, the drink temp can be anywhere around this temp range, at these temperatures your taste buds work the most accurately where sweetness, bitterness and umami flavours are balanced in their perceptions.

Conclusion

All this being said, I don’t expect anyone to change how they consume their daily coffee as hot drinks are a proven comfort physically and psychologically, but at least give it a try next time your coffee is tasting too bitter or you just want to see if this is all true, test it out and let us know what you found in the comment section on this post!

Hope you have a great week and some even better coffees!