Questions & Answers about El café me sabe un poco amargo hoy.
Why is me in this sentence?
Me is an indirect object pronoun, and here it means to me.
So the structure is roughly:
A very literal version would be:
- The coffee tastes a little bitter to me today.
Spanish often uses this kind of structure for personal perception, especially with food and drink.
Compare:
- El café sabe un poco amargo hoy. = The coffee tastes a bit bitter today.
- El café me sabe un poco amargo hoy. = The coffee tastes a bit bitter to me today.
So me adds a personal viewpoint.
Does saber really mean to taste here? I thought it meant to know.
Yes. Saber has more than one meaning.
The two common ones are:
- saber = to know
- saber = to taste
In food/drink contexts, saber often means to taste.
Examples:
- Sé la respuesta. = I know the answer.
- La sopa sabe bien. = The soup tastes good.
- Esto me sabe raro. = This tastes strange to me.
So in your sentence, sabe is from saber in its taste meaning.
Why is it sabe and not some other form of the verb?