Tuesday, April 22, 2003


more on the cupping. . .

from yesterday: it was amazing. they did indian arabicas and robustas, including monsooned malabars.

unlike wine tasting, which is snobby and usually hard to learn, i found coffee cupping to be user-friendly. many of the tastes are obvious and easy enough for any one to immediately understand. plus the coffee people i have all met are welcoming and friendly to novices. they are not scorn-filled sommeliers!

on a fashion note, current scaa president steve colten of atlantic had the most beautiful personal tasting spoon, made for him esp. by an artist named joe spoon -- i'm not kidding! this spoon will soon be the latest must-have on alt.coffee, i think.

it was incredible to hear the avuncular ken davids talk about the coffees. in general, he said, indian coffees are mild (here i wasn't sure if he as referring to the tasting term, mild or to the definition of mild as "any arabica coffee grown outside of brazil"). the cupping showcased some special coffees that might have potential in the future, or that might have some use in a complex espresso blend.

as he explained it, the problem with most indian coffees, besides quality and processing issues, was that they arrive to market about the same time as central american coffees do. but because of shipping and processing costs and delays, they are almost always going to be slightly more expensive than the centrals.

he also noted that in general some indian coffees have a bit of undesireable liberica in its genetic heritage, but did note that one of the coffees tasted might have some ethiopian in its genes. and in fact, when i cupped it, i did actually notice a sort of your-maiden-aunt's-dried-potpourri dusty floral taste in it. since people often describe ethiopian coffee as flower-y, ken was obviously right.

anyway, ken was interested in a coffee that has a lot of potential, one grown basically organically by tribes people in orissa. he thinks this coffee, "agro builders plantation bulk orissa" was worth considering hooking up with fair-trade organizations. this would give the people the resources to develop the coffee and improve it.

but of course this means fair trade buyers would in the meantime be supporting an undistinguished coffee. so there was some discussion about this, fair-trade vs. quality vs. the need to develop origins. the coffee pros were divided on this, naturally. i hesitantly ventured to ken that maybe the indian government should support this coffee for domestic consumption until the quality comes up.

the pros all looked at me politely and then resumed talking amongst themselves. because that's obviously not feasible to those who understand the situation, i guess. anyway, they were all very courtly and pleasant, which is one nice aspect of the old-fashioned way the coffee industry still does business.

the espresso was made on a faema legend, which was manned by sherri johns. she is the barista. she pulled the best espressi i have ever had; the woman's amazing. so i didn't get to play with the faema because this wasn't amateur hour.

ken and the pros had to do their business. i mostly hung around and tried not to make a fool of myself or get in the way. . .i quietly took my own notes and a few times they actually were in sync with those of ken or steve colten. a very few!

i discovered that i had trouble detecting brightness (aka, misleadingly, acidity) correctly and seemed over-sensitive to astringency. of course, the pros were looking at these coffees as blending components as well as interesting coffees on their own. they had a greater tolerance for these things and an amazing knowledge of how they would balance other parts of a commercially viable blend.

anyway, the coffees we tasted were: tata jumboor malabar nuggets extra bold (mneb) from tata coffee, washed arabica; badnekhan estate plantation bulk sl9, washed arabica (sl9 is a variety that ken thinks has potential); the orissa coffee, washed arabica; mylemoney estate plantation a, washed arabica; rajagiri estate plantation a, washed arabica; badnekahn estate plantation bulk sl795 (sl795 another variety that interested ken), washed arabica; sln exports robusta kappi royale, washed robusta; yemmigundi estate robusta parchment ab, washed robusta from tata coffee; aspinwall malabar aa, monsooned arabica; coelho gold malabar aa, monsooned arabica; a monsooned arabica from malabar that dallis had on hand, i didn't get the estate.

i was surprised to discover that all the robustas tasted way weird and funky, with the exception of the kappi royale, which i could barely tell was robusta. i was afraid i wouldn't be able to tell the arabicas and the robustas apart, but for the most part, yuck!

a robusta, even a supposedly good one, left a tar-like taste down the middle of my tongue. only the kappi didn't make my face immediately squinch when i slurped it. which i guess shows it is an exceptional robusta, one that might be worth using as part of specialty espresso blend. the monsooned coffees were also easy to note, having a really unique musty taste. again, not so good on its own, but in the right espresso blend. . .

once again, i have to give tons o' thanks to dallis coffee, who was so kind to invite me to peek in at this time-honored coffee ritual.

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