Ok, I've been back in Tucson for almost a year now and there is much to be desired from the local roasting scene. The trend is to roast well after the second crack, great if you want to club your tongue or cover up inferior beans, but not so great if you'd like to enjoy a nice South American coffee. Details and the true flavor have been destroyed.
So I've decided to educate 'Zona pallet's. I've begun working with local roasters and coffee houses to setup "cupping" events!
If you'd like to learn about selecting, roasting, profiling coffee - please tune in as I'll post dates of these events. Donations are accepted to offset the cost of cupping equipment.
What happens at a cupping?
3 Samples, usually one from each region (America's, Africa, Indonesia)
Green Bean grading
Evaluate the Roasted sample
Grind and examine
Brew in cup
Sample
Describe
I'll describe these steps in more detail in a later post.
Keep checking back for our inaugural cupping!
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Okay...let's see...
ReplyDeleteI'm one of the curious three who attended Paul's tasting about 2 weeks ago at Savaya.
First, my favorite roaster isn't listed...what a crime!
Ah...but onto the comments.
The first one from Sumatra (I believe) smelled like Folgers. Of course, Paul went into a seizure at this point, but was revived when we crushed some espresso into snuff and...
Okay, so I smelled it again...and it smelled like humus/wet earth. Paul got very cheery at this point so I continued by saying "OK, not Folgers...Maxwell House."
The taste was pungent...like the taste of wet oak leaves...seriously, I eat oak leaves...I leave the acorns for the squirrels. Hey, a guy's gotta get his fiber from somewhere.
Yet, I liked the acrid and highly pungent taste...tastes like that remind me of good sex.
The second was the Kenyan Peaberry...WOW!!!!!!!!!!
Now this was great coffee. Paul had decribed that the peaberry is like a siamese twin...with all the flavor of a siamese twin...
Holy roaster, Paul...I loved this BIG GIGANTIC coffee. SMMMMMMMMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTTHHHHH.
This was a full bodied, slightly earthy almost chocolatey, strong yet silky cup. No sugar, no milk, nothing...this coffee stood on its own.
The final, the El Salvadoran Bourbon was as my partner of 28 years put it "liquid brownies."
Yes, she was absolutely correct: that chocolate taste permeated the entire cup; in fact, I adulterated it (I adulterate many things...ha)with honey and cream...this baby was an ice cream sundae.
The best thing about the tasting was Paul: serious, urbane, cultured, an easy to have faint when mentioning Folgers.
We'll back...