It’s best to gulp coffee, scientists claim

How do you drink your coffee?

Do you savour each sip or do you just, as my mum would say, ‘wolf it down’ in milliseconds?

Well, according to Italian scientists, coffee lovers should gulp the drink in order to extract the best flavour from espresso, cappuccinos and the trendy flat whites.

Though we advise you to check the temperature first, you don’t want to burn your mouth now do you?

Bigger gulps help release the aroma of the coffee much more than small sips, allowing our other senses to get in on the act and enhancing our perception of the drink

The study, published in the journal of Food Research International, looked into different sipping amounts and the subsequent impact they had on the smell of coffee.

It was found that different brewing methods appeared to affect the aromas, and that the larger the sip, the more the fragrance was dispersed.

The group of scientists, based at the University of Naples, stated that the varying levels of aroma from different sized sips or gulps could be explained by the amount of saliva present in the subject’s mouth.

Testing four different coffee variations – an americano, a napoletana, mocha and an espresso were the drinks of choice – and the study found, unsurprisingly, that the espresso was the most poignant, and it was the one that had the biggest disparity in taste when it was either sipped or gulped.

The findings contradict the commonly held practises for other drinks, such as wine, where people are actively encouraged to drink small amounts in order to allow their taste buds to get a grip on all the complex flavours.

It perhaps goes someway to explaining why we are drawn to the smell of coffee.

pic: wikicommons