Coffee for Enjoyment or a Wake-Up: Does Preparation Smell Different?

Does the enjoyment of coffee begin only when we drink it? In a 2015 study, people who drank coffee for its aroma and taste placed more importance on aroma during preparation and reported greater satisfaction with it than people who drank for stimulation, such as to feel more awake.

Both groups reported high pleasantness after drinking, and their satisfaction with taste did not differ significantly. The study explores how the reasons for drinking the same coffee relate to the experience from preparation to consumption.

Comparing 60 people with different reasons for drinking coffee

The researchers examined how drinking coffee for enjoyment versus stimulation related to pleasantness, emotions, and the importance of and satisfaction with the five senses. Rather than focusing only on an evaluation after the final sip, they also tracked sensations and feelings during preparation.

The participants were 60 adults aged 18–60 living near Lausanne, Switzerland. All regularly drank the same commercial instant-coffee product. A 30-item questionnaire assessed their motivations, separating 30 who prioritized sensory enjoyment from 30 who prioritized stimulation. Each group included 15 women and 15 men.

The groups reflected participants’ usual motivations; the researchers did not randomly assign a reason for drinking. People with equally strong motivations were excluded, so the design was not intended to divide all coffee drinkers into two exhaustive categories. The questionnaire was developed within the company, and its full set of items has not been published.

Following heating, opening, preparation, and drinking

Testing took place in a laboratory kitchen. Participants used their usual amounts of coffee and water and could add sugar or milk according to their habits. They were not required to abstain from caffeine beforehand.

They first rated pleasantness and emotions at baseline, then answered questions after four stages: heating water, handling and opening the coffee jar, mixing and preparing the cup, and drinking. Along with pleasantness and 39 emotion terms, they rated how important and satisfying sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell were at each stage. Taste satisfaction was asked only after drinking.

Similar emotion responses were combined into 14 groupings and analyzed in relation to motivation group and stage of the experience. Following the experience as a sequence was itself an important aspect of the study.

The sensory-enjoyment group rated preparation aromas more highly

The group motivated by enjoyment rated aroma as more important and reported greater satisfaction from it. Group differences were also reported for the importance of smell while heating water and the importance of taste while opening the jar and preparing the cup. Even before drinking, anticipated sensations appeared to form part of the experience.

Across both groups, the importance of and satisfaction with smell and touch, and the importance of taste, were lower early on and rose toward preparation and drinking. Sight was rated highly from the start, while hearing remained relatively moderate and stable.

After drinking, taste importance and satisfaction were high in both groups. The group difference in taste satisfaction was not significant. The results do not suggest that people seeking stimulation cannot enjoy the taste.

Pleasantness and emotions showed similarities as well as differences

Mean pleasantness ratings were similar in both groups: around 7 at baseline and around 9 after drinking. During water heating, jar opening, and cup preparation, the enjoyment group’s means were higher. The authors interpreted this as a tendency to enjoy the experience from the preparation stage onward.

There is a qualification concerning the available source. The publicly available author manuscript describes a significant group difference in pleasantness, but the accompanying F and p values in its text are inconsistent. Because these could not be checked against the final published figures and tables, the statistical significance cannot be rigorously confirmed. The group-by-time interaction was also nonsignificant. Differences in the mean trajectories therefore do not by themselves establish that the pattern of change differed statistically between groups.

For emotions, the enjoyment group reportedly gave higher ratings across the experience for satisfaction, pleasure, energy, and several other feelings. However, not every positive emotion differed between groups. The stimulation group gave higher ratings for excitement and agitation. Excitement tended to rise during opening and preparation, then return toward baseline after drinking.

Satisfaction, energy, and related feelings increased in both groups as the experience progressed toward drinking. Group-by-time interactions were also nonsignificant in the individual emotion analyses. The differing emotional trajectories described by the authors were therefore interpretations based mainly on mean-value visualizations and overall group differences.

Is motivation the cause, or do everyday habits also matter?

The authors suggest that studies of food experiences should consider who uses a product and for what purpose. For product communication, they also discuss the value of focusing not only on effects after consumption, but on aromas released when opening a container and feelings during preparation.

However, the participants were users of one product in one region. In addition to differing motivations, they used their habitual coffee strength and amounts of sugar or milk. The study did not establish whether changing someone’s reason for drinking would reliably increase aroma satisfaction, or whether caffeine’s physiological effects caused the group differences.

Summary

People who drank coffee for sensory enjoyment placed greater importance on aroma during preparation and reported higher aroma satisfaction and several positive emotions than those seeking stimulation. Meanwhile, average pleasantness after drinking was similar, and taste satisfaction did not differ significantly between groups.

The reported statistical values in the public author manuscript leave a qualification around the pleasantness group difference. Even so, the study highlights how aroma and the importance of different senses change during preparation. Understanding a coffee experience means looking beyond what is in the cup to the reason for drinking and the sequence leading up to it.

At the time of the study, all authors were affiliated with Nestlé Research Center. No separate research-funding section or conflict-of-interest statement was found in the publicly available author manuscript.

References

Labbe D, Ferrage A, Rytz A, Pace J, Martin N. Pleasantness, emotions and perceptions induced by coffee beverage experience depend on the consumption motivation (hedonic or utilitarian). Food Quality and Preference. 2015;44:56–61. doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2015.03.017