Body and finish
- Body is weight you feel between tongue and palate; mouthfeel adds texture.
- Paper keeps cups light. Metal mesh and espresso keep oils and particles in, and weight with them.
- Astringency is a drying feel, bitterness a taste. The finish is what lingers, and for how long.
Body is something you feel
Body is felt, not tasted: the weight of coffee between your tongue and the roof of your mouth. Mouthfeel widens that to texture — silky, oily, gritty.
Oils and fines
Oils and tiny floating particles build both. Paper traps most of them, so a Chemex drinks light; a metal mesh waves them through, so a French press drinks heavy.
Lightest to heaviest
Order these from the lightest cup to the heaviest.
- Chemex
- AeroPress
- French press
- espresso
Chemex, AeroPress, French press, espresso. Paper holds oils and fines back; a metal mesh and an espresso basket let them through.
From tea-like to syrupy
Slide along the scale: which brewer sits where, and why. Espresso — dissolved coffee, oil droplets and fine particles — sits at the far end. Heavier isn’t better, whatever espresso thinks.
Light can score high
On the cupping form, how does a light-bodied coffee do?
Answer: It can score as highly as a heavy one. It can score just as highly. The form asks whether the weight feels pleasant, not whether there is a lot of it.
Drying is not bitter
Bitterness is a taste. Astringency is a feeling: dry, rough, puckered, the way strong black tea leaves your mouth. Strip the film and watch the palate line go rough.
The test
It comes largely from compounds that strip saliva’s slippery film. After you swallow, run your tongue along the roof of your mouth. If it drags like a slipper on a rug, that’s astringency.
The finish
The finish is what stays after you swallow: how long it lasts, and whether you want it to. Breathe out through your nose and count.
Long isn’t always good
Cuppers score a short or unpleasant finish down. But length alone doesn’t settle it.
Two cups both linger a long time. Which one gets marked down?
Answer: The one that leaves ash and a dry mouth. The ashy one. Long and pleasant is the goal; long and ashy is a warning, and a tired coffee that slips off fast scores low too.
“I would judge a coffee less by its weight than by how gracefully it takes its leave.”