Learning to cup
Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 11:41 am
Hey all, I did my first "formal" cupping tonight. Ever since I put that "cupping spoon" to my cart while just shopping for a gasket I wanted to do that
So, I had a "Guatemela Rosel" from Kaffeerösterei Spandau in Berlin, roasted in my cast iron roaster 4 days ago, then a fair-trade "Tatico" bag from langen-kaffee.de with a best-before-date of 18. may 07, so I guess it was roasted sometime in may (got this as a late birthday present). But it has a one-way valve.
And finally a bag with a hand-written "Hawaii Kona" on it which my boss gave me the other day with a comment of "I don't know what's in there, and I don't know how old it is", so it can be something completely different
So I sat in the kitchen feeling like a complete idiot when my mate came in and enjoyed three cups of coffee.
What surprises me most is that the Tatico, given the fact that it's at least 4 months old now, tastes so nice. It's a mild coffee, with a very light acidity, and a noticable body. It's also the coffee I'm drinking currently. Never imagined that the one-way-valve-bags keep the coffee good for so long. I can notice that it's old (ie, can imagine how it would have taste if it was fresh), but it's not as unpleasant as other old coffees I had so far.
The "Hawaii Kona"-labeled coffee was quite unpleasant. It bit on the tongue, was very different from the other two coffees, had a slight baked taste to it (which I associate with the Kenya Rukira Peaberry Estate blend that I todate never got right and always baked). Yesterday I thought of more things I could say about this coffee, but forgot them all ... need to make notes the next time! It was just plain unpleasant. Also a surprise here, because this coffee is also quite old and had no one-way valve, so I thought all the good and all the bad flavours would have been long gone ...
My homeroast was okay. It had a nice body, was well balanced, but had nothing really special to it. Perhaps I just had too much of it, cause that's the only coffee I had for the last 4 days and it got quite boring 'cause I drank much of it.
Monsooned_Bean and I and perhaps a friend of mine are going to have a small cupping hopefully in the next month which should be fun and a very nice learning experience , and this for me was a kind of preparation for it . I first doubted it would be of any use, given that I had just three coffees that differed not only in origin but also in roast and freshness, but it's well worth it.
So, I had a "Guatemela Rosel" from Kaffeerösterei Spandau in Berlin, roasted in my cast iron roaster 4 days ago, then a fair-trade "Tatico" bag from langen-kaffee.de with a best-before-date of 18. may 07, so I guess it was roasted sometime in may (got this as a late birthday present). But it has a one-way valve.
And finally a bag with a hand-written "Hawaii Kona" on it which my boss gave me the other day with a comment of "I don't know what's in there, and I don't know how old it is", so it can be something completely different
So I sat in the kitchen feeling like a complete idiot when my mate came in and enjoyed three cups of coffee.
What surprises me most is that the Tatico, given the fact that it's at least 4 months old now, tastes so nice. It's a mild coffee, with a very light acidity, and a noticable body. It's also the coffee I'm drinking currently. Never imagined that the one-way-valve-bags keep the coffee good for so long. I can notice that it's old (ie, can imagine how it would have taste if it was fresh), but it's not as unpleasant as other old coffees I had so far.
The "Hawaii Kona"-labeled coffee was quite unpleasant. It bit on the tongue, was very different from the other two coffees, had a slight baked taste to it (which I associate with the Kenya Rukira Peaberry Estate blend that I todate never got right and always baked). Yesterday I thought of more things I could say about this coffee, but forgot them all ... need to make notes the next time! It was just plain unpleasant. Also a surprise here, because this coffee is also quite old and had no one-way valve, so I thought all the good and all the bad flavours would have been long gone ...
My homeroast was okay. It had a nice body, was well balanced, but had nothing really special to it. Perhaps I just had too much of it, cause that's the only coffee I had for the last 4 days and it got quite boring 'cause I drank much of it.
Monsooned_Bean and I and perhaps a friend of mine are going to have a small cupping hopefully in the next month which should be fun and a very nice learning experience , and this for me was a kind of preparation for it . I first doubted it would be of any use, given that I had just three coffees that differed not only in origin but also in roast and freshness, but it's well worth it.