Why you can never describe coffee

Herersquos a simple word challenge I guarantee you wonrsquot passmdashdescribe the taste of a cup of coffee in a word Irsquoll give you a minuteYes I know you failed Donrsquot feel too badly about it The English language just doesnrsquot have any precise way of describing the taste of coffee Oh no doubt you can describe it by analogy calling it nutty floral smoky acidic or bitter Not one of those words would tell you what it tastes likeThere is no particular compound or molecule that gives a good coffee its unique taste though methylxanthines such as caffeine itself play a defining role But describing that familiar taste in a word has flummoxed writers and lexicographers forever Their best was words like earthy rubbery grassy winey and tart A group of coffee connoisseurs asked to identify five flavours they associated with coffee could not name even one They loved the taste but that was allNor is coffee alone Can you describe a pav bhajirsquos tastes in two words Delish and yummy donrsquot count Butter chicken The taste of butter naan SambarI live in a country Thailand that is famous for its rich and thrilling heritage of food and exquisite spicing I come from a country that has 32 major cuisines each one utterly distinct from the others in tastes ingredients and cooking styles Yet even as a writer proud of his romance with food I could not find the words to describe the taste and the aromas of any of the amazing dishes I have eaten in my lifeTry it Describe the taste of an idli with coconut chutney Knock yourself outI read once that different cultures have the most words for describing the things that matter to them the most For example the Inuits of Canada living in igloos amid freezing subpolar landscapes have at least 93 different words that describe ice and snow These range from kanik snow falling apt snow on the ground and qinu slushy ice by the sea to igalaujait ice which looks like windows and qautsaulittuq ice that breaks after its strength has been tested with a harpoonIn English alone I see no paucity of words to describe what we see with our eyesmdashwords like blurred opaque shimmering iridescent radiant opalescent shiny translucent Nor is there a problem with soundsmdashscreeches whispers whoops shrieks bellows scrunches rustles and so on Touch No issuesmdashgravelly smooth pulpy oily moist grainy sandy and so on You might conclude correctly that we really get a lot out of our eyes ears and sense of touchDoes this mean that we have pretty crude systems for tasting and smelling How many different smells and tastes do we not have words for Turns out we have about 400 different types of odor receptors in our nostrils Donrsquot jump with joy yetmdashthe average German Shepherd dog has 225 millionYet with just 400 receptors we can apparently distinguish between a million to a trillion odors and tastes as well as around 100000 flavors Thatrsquos a lot of important tastes and smells we have no words forIt seems wersquore specially fascinated by foul smells Even more damning we are far more accepting of our own farts and foul emanations than that of others Indeed studies have found that we will often judge another personrsquos very character on how they smell Thousands of people would be paid good money on a day in 2015 to stand in a serpentine queue outside the Chicago Botanical Gardens to smell a flowermdashredolent of rotten fish sewage and dead bodies The 45foot tall Corpse Flower is called Alice blooms once in a decade and stays in bloom for about eight hoursNeedless to say no one can find words to describe Alicersquos disgusting odours but only in English The Farsi Laos and Cantonese tongues have nuanced vocabularies for describing hundreds of tastes and smells English is left in the dustNow that wersquove established that Irsquom a food writer whose pathetic vocabulary cannot begin to describe the food he eats or cooks let me tell what I want to be in my next life A synestheteAll babies are born synesthetes unable to tell their senses apart from each other But in a rare group of people this condition called synesthesia never goes away Some see colours when they hear sounds Some taste foods when they hear wordsThatrsquos the kind I want to be A synesthete literally lsquotastesrsquo words Sounds like ldquoehrdquo or ldquommmrdquo make them taste mint while words with an ldquoayerdquo take them straight to bacon In a test one synesthete heard the word phonograph and instantly tasted Dutch chocolateIrsquod talk all the time Every conversation would be a feastHere viewed from there C Y Gopinath in Bangkok throws unique light and shadows on Mumbai the city that raised him You can reach him at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper