I was sitting in a small café this morning, watching the barista pull shots under this warm amber light.
Something about the combination of dim lighting, the sound of the grinder, and that brief hiss of steam made the whole experience feel slower — almost meditative.
It got me thinking: how much does the environment affect how we perceive espresso?
In brighter cafés, everything feels cleaner and sharper — maybe even the coffee itself tastes that way.
But in cozy, low-lit spaces, the same espresso somehow feels rounder, more relaxed, like time moves differently.
It’s probably part psychology, part sensory interaction.
Do you think café lighting, noise, and ambience actually change how espresso tastes — or is it all in our heads?
by acwithpau
27 Comments
Definitely not
The atmosphere can set a gentle tone for your visit and help you reach a state of tranquility, especially if you find it dimly lit and cozy… you might even overlook a super bitter or sour shot.
If you walk into a cafe and it’s really loud and exciting, then your mood might be a bit different too.
To be honest, if it’s bad, it’s gonna be bad.
It changes how *you* feel, which is the important part.
It’s probably all in our heads but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t change the taste! You experience food/ drinks with all your senses and if you like the look of the place and it has a cosy ambience/ great coffee smell/ you get served in a lovely cup, why wouldnt it change the experience for you? If it didnt, people wouldnt spend money on anything other than the best machine!
[am I being silly to think this post is AI-generated? Just read a post exactly like this in r/barista.](https://www.reddit.com/r/barista/s/v9csAUBiBU)
surely this has to be, these posts were made at almost the same time.
edit: why is this downvoted so hard? it’s literally against the rules if it is…
It depends… Salty air by the sea, for example, gives you a different taste experience than mountain air at 3000m in the Alps.
This is something that is already relevant (height difference, pressure setting, for example), but now in an aroma-filled place like a bistro there are additional substances that can have an influence.
Yes, the same espresso can taste different in another place.
Ambience is how you try and make your customers feel, whether they actually feel that way is dependent on many things. For example, a cosy coffee house may be spoilt by a constant noisy crowd, lots of factors in play.
No. Sometimes I get a delicious shot from a random place while modem, definitely stylish cafes fail to deliver. It seems they already feel like they’re better than anyone so why trying.
I visited a bunch of really good cafes and also many many more bad ones. When I see that there’s a concept behind all the flair and work it just feels right. So I feel good, too. When the staff is friendly and maybe talk a few words over their coffee and work there it’s even more comfortable, bc I know that they know what they’re doing.
So yeah. When everything feels good, it’s also an impact of the coffee I’m drinking there, especially when I want to stay a coupe of minutes.
If you’re really *tasting* probably not, but for someone just having a coffee, sure, ‘taste’ is very much an experiential thing.
Just today, I went to a cafe for the first time, run by a really friendly, passionate old guy who obviously loved his coffee. I ordered an espresso, he told me his espresso was quite sour and suited to his taste – not normally my, excuse the pun, cup of tea. But… I loved it, because it was just so nice to have a cup made with care (it took a while and I was the only customer!) and love. If I had that exact same coffee in another cafe/situation, I probably wouldn’t have liked it nearly as much.
Well, the tastiest cappuccino I ever drank was with my then girlfriend on top of Castel Sant’Angelo with a view over Rome enjoying a January sun. Guess atmosphere played a role here 🙂
Absolutely not. I’m able to go in and do my business and leave without having to allow any foreign influence in. I’m responsible of how I feel.
Sure: athmosphere has great impact on your senses. Wine tastes better at vacation and so does Espresso in a good bar.
AI slop
Miss me with this ai shit bro 😭
No. If the coffee sucks, it sucks.
Absolutely, but maybe not how you think. A good looking cafe with terrible coffee will never work. But a shabby cafe with great coffee won’t see me again. I go to a cafe also to spend time in a nice environment.
If I pour it on my head, it feels about the same no matter what the cafe’s decorations are like.
yes.
I think that it is 100% in our heads – but that is the beauty of it; we can pick and choose the places we go to either based on how we’re feeling already, or to gain a different feel from the ambience of the place we go to. Cosy, noisy, meditative, hip, good for study, good to observe, good to chat, etc. etc. all while still enjoying and benefiting from an espresso.
yes
Na, the espresso still feels wet
Sure!
Yes, very much for total experience. Now a great atmosphere doesn’t make crappy espresso taste good…
Depends on your mood at the time
Anybody else looking at the “kickstand” on the front of that espresso machine and thinking that after some engineer designed this very cool looking with an artsy and ultra-modern esthetic that when they got to the very end of the process and finally built one *and someone actually made coffee with it* that it wasn’t stable and they had to glue a stabilizer on the front?!
Definitely!