Tasting notes

Tasting notes turn a fleeting impression into something you can compare later. Every serious tasting tradition (wine, specialty coffee, tea, beer, whisky, craft chocolate) uses roughly the same order: look, smell, taste, feel, and how long it lasts. What changes from drink to drink is the vocabulary and the things that matter most: acidity and tannin in wine, sweetness and clean cup in coffee, liquor and leaf in tea, carbonation and bitterness in beer, the effect of water in whisky, snap and melt in chocolate.

A useful note is specific and honest. "Fruity" tells you little; "red cherry, then a little orange peel" lets you recognize the bottle again. And the taster's own words are worth more than borrowed ones.

When to use it