It doesn’t matter what kind of cup you use to drink coffee since the overall experience will be the same, right? Recent studies have cast doubt on that assertion. Your choice of mug may have a significant bearing on how much you take pleasure in your first cup of coffee in the morning.
Continue reading to hear about the intriguing findings of three research that focused on coffee. What should the perfect hue, form, and feel of a coffee cup be? Here you can discover solutions that are supported by scientific evidence!
How does cup color affect your coffee?
It’s possible that you don’t give much thought to the colour of the cup you drink out of, but there’s a new research that says the exact reverse is true. The research was conducted using both a sweet Brazilian type and a sour Kenyan kind of coffee, as well as four different cup colours (pink, white, green, and yellow). Before and after trying the coffee, participants were asked to score their first impressions, which basically focused on their anticipations and how well they were satisfied.
What kind of findings did you get? The participants’ perceptions of all of the assessed qualities, including sweetness, acidity, and overall satisfaction, were altered by the different colours of the cups. Drinkers who drank from pink cups were trained to anticipate sweetness, while drinkers who drank from yellow or green cups were ready to anticipate acidity. When respondents were not expecting the combination, they claimed that it made the coffee taste unpleasant. And the combination of the already acidic Kenyan coffee with the pink cup brought out even more of that acidity.
The main point is… If you like your coffee sweet and smooth and you want to make the experience even better, consider using a pink cup. On the other hand, if you want your coffee to have a lively and acidic flavour, you may like the yellow or green cup more. Do not, under any circumstances, make the mistake of drinking acidic coffee out of a pink cup or sweet coffee out of a yellow one; the outcome may not be to your liking!
What about cup shape?
If you have ever attended a tasting of whiskey, beer, or wine, then you are aware that the shape of the cup may have an effect on the scent, look, and taste of the alcoholic beverage being sampled. According to the findings of recent studies, the same may be said about coffee!
In this research, which was carried out in Brazil during a competition for speciality coffee, tulip, open, and split cups (bulbed at the bottom and open at the top) were compared to one another. What did it uncover, exactly? The tulip cup provided the greatest scent, according to both professionals and novices, while the split cup was sweeter and had a higher acidity level. However, the professionals had a far better time during the split cup than the amateurs did.
What exactly does this entail? If you want a strong cup of coffee, you could appreciate a split cup better; but, if you enjoy a more pleasant scent, a tulip cup might be more to your liking.
Does cup texture affect anything?
The third factor in your coffee experience is the texture of your coffee cup. And yes, there’s a study that tested just that! This study, conducted in Russia, involved smooth and rough ceramic cups. Participants rated the acidity, sweetness, and aftertaste of each coffee variety.
Participants found the coffee more acidic when drunk out of a rough cup and sweeter out of a smooth one. They also found a dry aftertaste — which sounds unpleasant — when drinking from rough coffee cups. That’s probably why most coffee cups are smooth!
What’s our takeaway from this one? Stick to smooth coffee cups, unless you really like acidic coffee.
The Bottom Line: What’s the Best Color, Shape, and Texture?
After going over all of the scientific information, it is now time to get to the meat and potatoes of the discussion, which is: which kind of coffee cup do you think you would like the most? We suggest a smooth pink coffee cup with a tulip or open form for you to use if you want coffee beans that are spherical and have a little sweet flavour, like those that come from Brazil. Do you like your coffee strong and acidic? Consider using a jar that has a cracked pattern and is either yellow or green in colour.
Naturally, this is what the scientific community believes. You are more than welcome to use the mug that you got at your high school reunion or the rough ceramic masterpiece that your youngster made. We won’t let the researchers know about this! Where exactly can we submit our information to participate in one of these coffee studies?