A Most Unsavory Topic

Ok, so I felt I must tackle this subject. What subject you may ask? Why the Savory one of course.

I have noticed that in the past year or so a trend has been emerging amongst coffee tasters and buyers when at the cupping table. The word "savory" keeps popping up. It rolls off the tongue so nicely. It is one of those words that we all know what someone means when they say it, but then at the same time don't really have a clue exactly what they mean. I think it's safe to say that savory is much too broad a term to be using at a cupping table. Especially if one who uses the term, cannot describe what they are tasting beyond just that.

So I started rummaging through Google to find an definition of this word. Not to my surprise, I found no such definition that satisfied my need for specificity. In fact, one definition (Wiktionary), actually used the word in the definition: "3.) a savory snack." Isn't that rule number one of a dictionary: you cannot use the word you are defining in its own definition? The most popular definition I found was that "savory" referred to food that was not sweet. Well, ok, that leaves a whole world of other flavors up for grabs. Then I stumbled through some forums, where people debated weather or not it meant unsweet, or if it meant a pleasurable combination of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter; a richness of flavor. The latter definition would fall more in line with another term related to savory: "umami." This is a japanese word that literally translates to be "delicious taste." Again, not very specific.

So I kept reading into umami, and found that there might actually be some science behind it. Yet even with all the research showing that the tongue may indeed have umami receptors, the conclusions were later stated in the article to be "unclear." Wikipedia's article, which goes into pretty decent detail, with plenty of cited sources, said things that were very confusing logically. The introduction states that umami is a term used to describe the taste of glutamates, and nucleotides. But then another section goes on to say that "by itself umami is not palatable", but that it "makes a great variety of foods pleasant especially in the presence of a matching aroma." So now we are back to this synergistic idea that savory it is a term used to describe the richness of a food's flavor: a combination of flavors coming together to create an impacting palatable experience. This definition would include sweet. 


If it is true that glutamates and nucleotides have an altogether recognizable taste separate from sweet, sour, salt, and bitter, than I'll accept the term as a legitimate specific flavor descriptor. But from what I can infer, it sounds like umami is less of a taste and more of a sensation. I get the feeling that we all have a sense of what umami is, but don't really know how to describe it effectively. This is were I think the problem is. Savory seems to be too much of an idea of balance, or some sort of tactile experience.  If you put a solution of sugar in front of me, I'd be able to identify it as sweet; or a solution of salt, I'd say with confidence is salty. Citric acid I could identify as sour, and quinine would most definitely be bitter. But if you put a spoonful of MSG in front of me, my first reaction would not be to say umami or savory (but then again, I don't know. I've never eaten a spoonful of MSG...mmm). 


I'm not saying that you cannot claim a coffee has a savory quality to it. What I am saying is that it doesn't help me understand what you are specifically tasting. Most people feel comfortable leaving their description at savory, failing to go beyond that term and describe exactly what it is that makes what their tasting savory.


Even the list of foods generally thought to contain umami seems too broad and varying:  "fish, shellfish, cured meats, vegetables (e.g. mushrooms, ripe tomatoes, Chinese cabbage, spinach, celery, etc.) or green tea, and fermented and aged products (e.g. cheeses, shrimp pastes, soy sauce, etc.)"


Tracy Allen once told me, "if it's not listed on the Coffe Taster's Flavor and Aroma Wheel it doesn't exist." I tend to agree. 


We like to over complicate things. And it's usually never necessary. - I said that.