Cupping part 1: Tongue and Nose. Name a Better Duo.

We’ve gotten a few weeks into our new project here at the feline, and it’s important for us to establish goals. One of those goals is obviously the creation and curation of the best coffee possible. To do that, we take samples from our roasts and perform a cupping. Cupping coffee is when we take a coffee, we grind it into our cupping bowl/cup and then smell it while it is dry. We call that the coffee’s fragrance. After that, we’re going to pour hot water on top of that coffee, and we’re going to smell it again. Since it’s in a bowl/cup we’re going to get a crust of coffee grounds that rise to the top, similar to your experience to a French Press. We’ll smell this coffee again. We call this the wet aroma. We’re going to give this coffee a few minutes to brew. minimum 5, and then we’re going to get a spoon and we’re going to break that crust. While we break that crust, we’re going to take a big ol wiff and really try to smell as best as we can. Underneath that crust is a once per cupping bowl opportunity to really get to smell that coffee.

You’re maybe wondering, why am I talking about what something smells like so much. But to truly understand taste, you have to to pay attention to scents. Actually, almost 75% of what you’re tasting is because of what you’re smelling. I think we’ve all seen jokes of food tasters, who seem to talk about flavors in such esoteric and fancy words and think that they’re sputtering nonsense. It’s not all pseudo-science though! Volatile aromatic compounds are what give things their scent and to an extent their flavor. What our tongue does is differentiate: Sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami, and with the help of salivation, it also helps break down food into aromatic compounds that we can actively smell as we chew on food, or allow food/drink to aerate on our palate (tongue). This is especially true for whiskey, which they recommend for a high quality whiskey for you to allow it to sit on your palate for a moment, during which you’ll breath through your nose lightly and have a greater release of flavor from your whiskey. Unless you’re that person who really holds their breath for thirty seconds with your mouth full. You probably never notice that you breathing a little while you chew and eat . There are other techniques, more specific for different tastings, like retro nasal breathing that isn’t for this course, but it’s all to say that smelling is super important in your tasting of coffee and all things.

After you get this big ol’ wiff of coffee aroma, the next thing that we’re going to do is taste this coffee. Using a spoon we’re going to ladle a small amount of coffee into that spoon and we’re going to slurp it aggressively. In doing that slurp, we’re aerating our mouths, and allowing the coffee to touch all of the parts of our mouth. Which is going to allow us to really get a good retro nasal experience, while allowing the tongue to do its work as well.