# Learning to savour: the sensory pleasure of a cup

*The scent of freshly ground coffee, the steam of tea on your face, a mate warming your hands on a cold morning: even before taste, a drink is a small story told to the senses. All it takes is a moment’s pause to listen.*

Published: 2026-10-19 · https://www.ritualestore.it/en/blog/imparare-a-gustare

## In brief

- Much of what we call “flavour” is actually smell: aromas reach the nose twice, from outside before the sip and then from inside the mouth, by the retronasal route.
- Coffee’s aroma is made up of hundreds of volatile compounds, but only a few (aldehydes, furanones, pyrazines, sulphur compounds) define its character; many of them dissipate within minutes of grinding.
- Temperature changes taste: the perception of sweetness increases with warmth, which is why a coffee or tea that cools in the cup changes flavour.
- The vessel matters too: in a University of Oxford study, the same coffee drunk from a white mug seemed more intense and less sweet than from a transparent one.
- Hot drinks are best enjoyed below 65 °C: above that threshold the IARC considers them probably carcinogenic to the oesophagus.
- Drinking mindfully needs no special technique: just smell before you drink, take small sips, hold the drink in your mouth for a moment and pay attention to the aftertaste.

We drink every day, often without noticing. Coffee standing at the counter, tea left to go cold beside the keyboard, mate passed from hand to hand while the talk is about something else. Yet every cup holds far more than we ask of it: an aroma, a warmth, a texture, a flavour that changes as we drink it. This article is an invitation to stop and notice, starting with what happens to our senses before, during and after a sip.

## The aroma before the first sip

The experience of a drink begins before we taste it. It begins when we open the coffee jar, when the water touches the tea leaves, when the yerba poured into the mate releases its grassy scent, a little of hay and a little of woodland. This is no small detail: much of what we call “taste” passes through the nose. On its own, the tongue distinguishes only a handful of basic qualities: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami. Everything else, the notes of chocolate, flowers, fruit, toast, is smell.

Aromas reach the nose by two routes. The first is the one we know: we sniff the cup from outside, and this is *orthonasal* smell. The second is less obvious: when we drink and swallow, volatile molecules rise from the back of the mouth towards the nose, and this is *retronasal* smell. The neuroscientist Gordon Shepherd, who gave this field the name “neurogastronomy”, showed that it is precisely this second route that builds much of the flavour we perceive. The Oxford psychologist Charles Spence reminds us that flavour is a *multisensory* experience: smell, taste, touch, sight and even hearing merge into a single perception.

*Beans and freshly ground coffee: the aroma is at its most intense in the first few minutes after grinding.*

Coffee is a textbook case. Its volatile fraction, explain researchers at the University of Camerino in a review devoted to espresso, is extremely complex, but only a few compounds truly define its character: aldehydes, ketones, furanones, pyrazines, sulphur compounds. Many of these are fragile and dissipate quickly after grinding: that is why the aroma of freshly ground coffee is so different from that of a packet opened days ago. The same goes for tea, whose leaves release their aromas only on contact with hot water, and for yerba, whose scent changes with ageing and with the presence of the little stalks.

> **A small exercise**: Before drinking, bring the cup to your face and breathe calmly, two or three times. Then take a sip, hold it in your mouth for a moment and, after swallowing, breathe out slowly through your nose. The aroma you notice at that moment is the retronasal aroma: it is often richer than the one you perceive by sniffing.

## A warm cup in your hands

Then there is a dimension that has nothing to do with taste, yet is part of the pleasure: touch. The weight of the ceramic, the roughness of a mate gourd, the warmth rising from your palms up your arms, the steam dampening your face. These are sensations we know well without ever having named them, and they explain why a warm cup in your hands on a cold day is a small comfort even before the first sip.

Psychology has long been interested in this link between physical warmth and human warmth. In 2008 a study published in *Science* by Lawrence Williams and John Bargh claimed that people who briefly held a cup of hot coffee judged a stranger to be “warmer” than those who held an iced coffee. It is an appealing idea, but one to treat with caution: later attempts to replicate the experiment with larger samples did not find the same effect. What remains, with no need for experiments, is common experience: the warmth of a cup slows our movements, invites us to sit down, asks to be held in both hands.

The vessel, too, changes what we perceive. In a study published in the journal *Flavour*, a group of researchers led by George van Doorn with Charles Spence served the same coffee in different mugs: from the white mug it was judged more intense and less sweet than from a transparent one. It is not a trick: it is the brain using every piece of information available, colour included, to build flavour. Choosing your own cup, your own mate, your own teapot is therefore not merely a matter of looks.

> A warm cup is held in both hands. It is perhaps the first way the body asks us to slow down.

## The first coffee of the morning

There is a moment in the morning when the day has not quite begun. The house is quiet, the light still uncertain, the messages unread. In many kitchens that moment has a precise sound: the gurgle of the moka pot, the whistle of the kettle, the water running over the yerba. The first coffee is not just a dose of caffeine: it is a threshold. It marks the passage from sleep to the day, and it is one of the rare gestures we repeat identically every morning, almost without thinking.

Precisely because it is a habit, the first coffee risks becoming automatic: drunk standing up, looking at the phone, finished before we have even noticed starting it. Yet the waiting is part of the pleasure. The time the moka spends on a low flame, the two minutes of steeping, the aroma spreading through the kitchen are a prelude that prepares the senses. People who allow themselves those minutes often say they start the day at a different pace: not faster, but more present.

*The moka pot and the morning cup: the gurgle is the signal that the day can begin.*

> **Common sense**: Caffeine is a stimulant and should be taken in moderation. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) considers that, for a healthy adult, up to 400 mg a day, roughly four to five espressos, raises no safety concerns, and up to 200 mg a day during pregnancy. Coffee, tea and mate all contain caffeine, in varying amounts depending on the dose and preparation.

## Drinks and the seasons

Our rituals change with the weather and the light. In winter hot tea keeps us company through dark, rainy afternoons, coffee becomes a refuge, mate is drunk indoors by the stove. In spring we head back outside, and mate goes to parks and benches, the flask tucked under an arm. In summer Paraguay drinks *tereré*, with iced water, citrus and crushed herbs: a ritual UNESCO inscribed in 2020 on the list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In Italy, the after-lunch coffee holds out whatever the temperature.

The weather changes not only what we drink but also how we taste it. A study published in *Nature* showed that the TRPM5 channel, found in taste cells, is highly sensitive to temperature: between 15 and 35 °C its activity rises sharply, and with it the response to sweet tastes. This is one of the reasons an iced drink seems less sweet than the same drink lukewarm, and why a coffee cooling in the cup changes character sip after sip.

There is also a curiosity that surprises people from cold climates: on hot days, many peoples drink hot drinks. In Argentina mate does not stop in summer, and in many hot countries scalding tea is a constant. Research from the University of Ottawa found that, when sweat can evaporate freely, drinking hot water during physical activity leads the body to store less heat than cold water does, because it triggers greater sweating. It is not a universal rule, but it is a reminder that many habits hide a practical wisdom.

*Iced tereré with mint and citrus: the mate ritual when summer arrives.*

## The pleasure of slowness

Drinking on autopilot is easy. Drinking mindfully takes very little: a few extra seconds, and the curiosity to ask yourself what you are tasting. It is the same principle used by professional tasters, who in coffee *cupping* smell the dry grounds, then the crust that forms with the water, and finally slurp the coffee noisily from the spoon to spread it across the whole mouth and up towards the nose. There is no need to go that far, but something of that method can be brought home.

- **Aromas**: smell before drinking, then breathe out through your nose after the sip. Look for the families: toasty, fruity, floral, spicy, grassy, woody.
- **Temperature**: taste the same cup freshly made, after a few minutes and almost cold. The flavour changes, and the best often comes once the drink has cooled a little.
- **Texture**: an espresso can be dense and velvety, a green tea light and almost watery, a mate full and slightly astringent. A drink’s body is felt on the palate, not on the tongue.
- **Aftertaste**: after swallowing, wait. What lingers in your mouth and nose for a few seconds says a great deal about the quality of a coffee or a tea leaf.

The Japanese tea tradition has made an art of this attention. In *The Book of Tea*, published in 1906, Okakura Kakuzō described tea as a “religion of the art of life”, a way of finding beauty in simple, everyday things. You need no ceremony to do the same: just a moment in which the cup is not background, but the centre of your attention.

> **The right temperature**: Savouring slowly also has a practical advantage: it gives the drink time to cool to a safe temperature. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classifies beverages consumed above 65 °C as probably carcinogenic to the oesophagus. Waiting a minute before the first sip is good for both your palate and your health.

## Pleasure as ritual

Learning to savour does not mean becoming an expert, nor turning every coffee into a tasting. It means noticing. The aroma filling the kitchen, the warmth in your hands, the first sip that wakes you up, the way the same drink changes with the seasons and with your mood. It is in this attention that a habit becomes a ritual: a gesture repeated not out of inertia, but because each time it gives something back.

Next time you make a coffee, a tea or a mate, try giving yourself one extra minute. Smell before you drink, hold the cup in both hands, wait for the aftertaste. It will not change your day, but it will change how it begins. And it is often there, in small pleasures taken seriously, that the best part of a break is found.

## Frequently asked questions

### Why is aroma so important to the taste of a drink?

Because the tongue distinguishes only a few basic qualities (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami): all the other notes, from chocolate to flowers, are perceived by smell. Aromas reach the nose both when you sniff the cup and, during and after the sip, from inside the mouth, by the retronasal route.

### Why does freshly ground coffee smell stronger?

Because many of the volatile compounds that give coffee its characteristic aroma are fragile and dissipate quickly after grinding. Freshly ground coffee keeps a much richer share of its aroma than a packet opened days ago.

### Does temperature change the taste of coffee or tea?

Yes. The perception of sweetness increases with warmth, between roughly 15 and 35 °C, thanks to a temperature-sensitive channel in taste cells (TRPM5). That is why the same drink changes flavour as it cools, and why an iced drink seems less sweet.

### Does the colour of the mug affect the taste of coffee?

It can. In a study published in the journal Flavour, the same coffee served in a white mug was judged more intense and less sweet than when served in a transparent one. The brain uses sight, too, to build flavour.

### How do you learn to savour a drink?

By smelling before you drink, taking small sips, holding the drink in your mouth for a moment and breathing out through your nose after swallowing. It also helps to taste the same cup at different temperatures and to pay attention to texture and aftertaste.

### What temperature is best for drinking tea, coffee and mate?

Below 65 °C: the IARC classifies beverages consumed hotter than that as probably carcinogenic to the oesophagus. Letting the cup cool for a minute is also the best way to appreciate its aromas.

## Sources

1. [Spence C., *Multisensory flavour perception*, Current Biology, 2013](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23660358/)
2. [Shepherd G. M., *Smell images and the flavour system in the human brain*, Nature, 2006](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17108956/)
3. [Wikipedia, *Retronasal smell*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retronasal_smell)
4. [Wikipedia, *Neurogastronomy*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurogastronomy)
5. [Angeloni S. et al., *Characterization of the Aroma Profile and Main Key Odorants of Espresso Coffee*, Molecules, 2021 (University of Camerino)](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34202706/)
6. [Williams L. E., Bargh J. A., *Experiencing physical warmth promotes interpersonal warmth*, Science, 2008](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18948544/)
7. [Lynott D. et al., *Replication of “Experiencing physical warmth promotes interpersonal warmth” by Williams & Bargh (2008)*, Social Psychology, 2014](https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000187)
8. [Van Doorn G. H., Wuillemin D., Spence C., *Does the colour of the mug influence the taste of the coffee?*, Flavour, 2014](https://flavourjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2044-7248-3-10)
9. [Talavera K. et al., *Heat activation of TRPM5 underlies thermal sensitivity of sweet taste*, Nature, 2005](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04248)
10. [Bain A. R., Lesperance N. C., Jay O., *Body heat storage during physical activity is lower with hot fluid ingestion under conditions that permit full evaporation*, Acta Physiologica, 2012](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22574769/)
11. [UNESCO, *Practices and traditional knowledge of Terere in the culture of Pohã Ñana* (2020)](https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/practices-and-traditional-knowledge-of-terere-in-the-culture-of-poha-nana-guarani-ancestral-drink-in-paraguay-01603)
12. [EFSA, *Scientific Opinion on the safety of caffeine*, EFSA Journal, 2015](https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4102)
13. [Wikipedia, *Coffee cupping*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_cupping)
14. [Wikipedia, *The Book of Tea* (Okakura Kakuzō, 1906)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Tea)
15. [IARC, *IARC Monographs evaluate drinking coffee, maté, and very hot beverages*, press release no. 244, 15 June 2016](https://www.iarc.who.int/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/pr244_E.pdf)