Cupping and Tasting

The second class about Coffee was on Monday night and it turned out there was more to the tasting than just pouring a cup for everyone.  In fact, it was fairly intimidating in the same way a wine tasting would be.  I think of Meg Ryan in French Kiss when Kevin Kline asks her to close her eyes and think about what she is tasting.

Each coffee was first ground and then put in five of the cups, which actually looked like bowls.  The roasted beans are displayed in the blue dishes.  We smelled each and jotted down anything that we noticed about the aroma of the dry coffee. Then Levi poured hot water over the ground beans which  steeped only a few minutes and we went around and smelled the brewed coffee.  Step three was the actual tasting part and after the "crust" was broken, you only skimmed the surface or you would be chewing on the grounds.  That would be wrong and really nasty.

During all these steps, Levi would be asking us what we noticed and then he would say what he noticed and then most of us went back to see if we noticed it once we knew what it was.  A bunch of rookies but it was interesting and fun.

Packaged ground beans, sold mostly to restaurants.  The empty bags hanging on the tables show where the coffee came from.  We tasted three coffees from Ethiopia, one from Rwanda and one from Nicaragua.