Do a coffee tasting

“Then came the best part: the tasting. In front of me, I had three delicious coffees: Bale Mountain, Migoti Hill, and Finca La Esperanza, from Ethiopia, Burundi, and Guatemala, respectively. With the guidance of Rachel and Cath, the founder of Steampunk Coffee, I was guided through the process of how to taste each coffee. [...] I enjoyed tasting each coffee, slurping the samples to try to decipher what flavours were present in each coffee. This part of the tasting was part-tasting, part-discussion. Rachel shared some of her opinions on the coffee and other people jumped in, too. But I was first given the opportunity to taste before we started comparing notes, which reduces the chance that bias creeps into the process. When someone says that a coffee tastes like something, it is really easy to mimic what that person has said.”

“I think the biggest mistake people make in cup tasting is trying to “taste” the coffee. When we talk about flavor notes in coffee what we’re really discussing are the minute subtleties that are inherent to that particular bean. However if we’re being very honest with ourselves we all know that, beyond the subtleties, pretty much all coffee tastes like, well, coffee. So trying to identify an odd one out by flavor is incredibly difficult when all three cups share the same dominant taste. When we evaluate coffee in barista comps, we take two sips unless instructed to do otherwise. Typically on the first sip, most judges evaluate the taste balance and the tactile nature of the coffee. The second is for flavor notes.”