Archive for January, 2008
January Cupping
We recently hosted our third public cupping. Our topic was on the seasonality of coffee. Like always, Branden reached into his brain and pulled out interesting coffee information. Information that just might improve your coffee drinking life.
PT’s sent us green samples of all the coffee that we were cupping for the day which we compared to the roasted beans.
We wanted to choose coffees that recently went through their harvest season which is why two of our choices were coffees from Colombia. Colombia’s peak harvest time is between October and December. It can take somewhere between 1 to 4 months for that coffee to arrive stateside. Time diminishes the quality of coffee, even green coffee, so we wanted to try to cup coffees that were (hopefully) coming fresh off harvest.
The Colombia Huila El Palacio hammed it up and was the crowd favorite. We also cupped Colombia Narino Reserva Del Patron, El Salvador Los Planes Pacamara, and El Salvador El Molino Orange Bourbon.
It was friendly and jovial as usual. We are already tossing around ideas for next month’s cupping. If you are interested please feel free to contact me at jmarsceau@gmail.com
Public Cupping
Awhile ago we held our second public cupping. These events are educational, informative, and MINDBLOWING.
We are cupping 5 coffees today. They are: Costa Rica El Patio (C.O.E #20), Costa Rica Carrazal (C.O.E. #5), Panama Carmen Estate, Panama Elida Estate, and Ethiopia Sidamo Natural. Mis-education point #1: All coffee tastes the same so why the specifics? What’s the difference? I’ve gotten a few snide remarks from blowhards when asked to choose from a Sumatra Blue Batak or a Kenya AA Kieni. They smirk, they chuckle….”what’s the difference?har har har.” So one of our goals today with this cupping is to show that there are distinct differences in coffee. Comparing Sumatra Blue Batak to Kenya AA Kieni would be too easy so we decided to blow it open and show the differences that can be found within…the…..same….country. WHOA! Thus the reasoning behind cupping 2 different estate coffees from Panama and Costa Rica.
Not only are we learning about coffee we are also learning about the process and history of cupping. Branden is sort of our Coffee Phantom of the Opera and has a plethra of coffee knowledge and information. He also talks about what Cup of Excellence coffee is since two of our coffees featured today are C.O.E. awarded.
We had a good time, we got along marvelously and decided that the fun must go on….so went down the street and had a cheeseburger cupping at Xavier’s.
Our next cupping is scheduled for January 26th. You can e-mail jmarsceau@gmail.com if you have any questions or would like to attend.