In your sensory classes, you teach coffee language for coffee professionals and customers. Can you share what we can understand about coffee language and why color, shapes and our five senses play a role there?

The good news is that everybody can train their sensory skills! Let's take a look at the term “body.” To describe the body in coffee, you need to know the right words for mouthfeel or texture, viscosity and weight. Once you get familiar with the right words to describe different sensations, you’ll get more and more detailed to evaluate the cup profile. In my classes, I teach exactly these words. 

One special class is the multisensory course, where I guide you through different tastings – such as drinking the same coffee from different cups. The same coffee can taste more sour when the coffee is served in a yellow or white cup, for example. Our brain connects these colors with fruits like lemons and transforms this connection to the coffee we drink at that moment. There are a lot of “wow” moments when I give these classes.

One of your biggest approaches is to bring females in the coffee field together, and you created a network where you are able to gather and exchange with each other. When did you know there was a demand for that and why do you feel it is important to create a safe and authentic space for females in the coffee industry?

I heard so many stories, and was also a part of such stories, where women weren’t treated the same way as their male coworkers. As a woman, you need so much more confidence to stand up for yourself when perhaps a man is calling you “Kaffee Maus.” This Coffee Lady Network is not about withdrawing from the male world; it’s about getting more confident and strong to resist inequality in a respectful and straightforward way.