Daniel's World of Coffee

Common Cupping Mistakes — Not Really Blind

These are some of the most common mistakes I have seen in cupping labs in my career. These are the problems that pop up again and again. Even when you warn people to prepare for the problem, they often underestimate the problem.

These are concerns for you to address whether you are setting up a one-time cupping on the road, or whether you are building out or improving your own permanent lab.

I have a friend who is a professional taste-tester and product-tester. She works in all kinds of foods, like crackers, chocolate, wine, TV-dinners, soft drinks, and yes, even coffee. A few years back she was in charge of training some experts for a panel she was putting together.

To test her subjects, she put together a little trick, making cherry gelatin with yellow coloring. When she served the yellow gelatin to the panel and asked them to write down what flavor it was, most of the tasters wrote "lemon," a couple wrote "banana," and only one of them wrote "cherry."

Think this is a one-time incident? Check this out:

In France, a decade ago a wine researcher named Fréderic Brochet served 57 French wine experts two identical midrange Bordeaux wines, one in an expensive Grand Cru bottle, the other accommodated in the bottle of a cheap table wine. The gurus showed a significant preference for the Grand Cru bottle, employing adjectives like "excellent" more often for the Grand Cru, and "unbalanced," and "flat" more often for the table wine. — Wall Street Journal

If you think you are immune to this effect, you're wrong. No one is immune. If you know ahead of time what you are tasting, your opinion will be influenced by your preconceptions.

And yet, people still put together coffee cuppings ignoring this principle. It's okay to do an open cupping if it's just for fun, obviously. But if you are seriously trying to get useable data from your cupping, IT MUST BE BLIND.

There is no way around this. And no, you are not an exception to this rule.

Just to be clear what I mean by "blind": the identity of each coffee should be hidden to as great a degree as possible. Most times, of course, you will know you are cupping 20 Panamas, or 8 coffees from the same roaster, or whatever. This level of knowledge if usually unavoidable. But you should have no idea which is which. To achieve this level of ignorance, use codes for each coffee and make sure to order them randomly.

Ideally, you won't even know what category of coffee you are tasting. That's always the most interesting. But it's pretty rare to not have at least some idea what the category is.

The easiest way to make a cupping blind is, of course, to have most or all of the cuppers out of the room when the organizer sets up the cupping and gives the coffees a code. But many times you will be the one who is setting things up and at the same time you are the one hoping to do some evaluation.

There's a simple way to get around this. Just double-code the coffee. Imagine I am setting up a cupping with one other friend, and we both want to score blind. I will write down one set of codes. So a coffee from the farm "Finca Alfa" becomes 001 and "Finca Beta" becomes 002, etc.

Then I leave the area and my colleague comes in and re-codes the samples. "001" becomes "282" or some other random number. "002" becomes "991" etc. She makes sure to mix the order of the coffees.

When I come back in, I have no idea what is what, and neither does she, since she never saw the original list. We both cup completely blind and our data is therefore much more reliable. Then, at the end, we trace back through our double-code and re-establish the identity of each coffee. Easy peasy.

If you are not doing this, you might be having fun cupping, but you're not learning anything about your coffee.

Incidentally, I have noticed that 99% of all espresso-tasting that goes on in the specialty coffee world isn't even remotely blind. Everyone who tastes the different espressos knows exactly what he or she is tasting. Why people think this is a maximal way to evaluate their products is beyond me. (In order for it to be even half-way useful, the taster would have to be someone other than the barista, and he or she would have to be sitting somewhere away from the espresso machine so as not to have any hints about what's going on. Really you need at minimum three people: one barista, one "server" to act as liaison, and one taster... ideally you should have several tasters). This is really a topic for another post as espresso-tasting presents unique difficulties.

But in straight cupping it's very simple and straightforward. If you are not doing it blind, you're not really doing it! So now, are you a professional, or aren't you?

In this series: Common Cupping Mistakes — Hot Water!

In this series: Common Cupping Mistakes — Smelly Cups

In this series: Common Cupping Mistakes — Not Really Blind

Ethiopia Guide

I've been composing a rather long guide to buying coffee in Ethiopia. There are still a few more drafts to go through, but I thought it would be nice to post some of the information here on the blog.

The completed guide will be online eventually, and I'll be sure to post the URL when it becomes available. Some of it is quite technical stuff, but for now, here's a little 101 stuff by way of introduction...

Coffee Characteristics

The most important thing to remember about Ethiopian coffee is that Ethiopia is the Motherland of all arabica coffee. In a certain sense, all arabica coffee is Ethiopian, whether it is grown in Latin America or Indonesia or on a hillside in Sidama.

When coffee was taken to other countries, people had to find ways to adapt it to the local climate. You find that arabica coffee grows best — worldwide — in places that have climates similar to that of Ethiopia: mountainous, tropical, with moderate wet and dry seasons.

Generally, in Ethiopia, no such adaptation is necessary! The coffee has been growing there for literally thousands of years, in the forests of southeastern Ethiopia. It is already perfectly adapted to the climate. This is the immense advantage that Ethiopia has over all other coffee producing countries.

As the “origin of all origins,” Ethiopia has another unique feature: hundreds of heirloom varietals. In many cases, farmers grow their own unique heirloom varietals. The majority of these varietals grow nowhere else in the world, and a great many of them have not even been classified.

In many places — often in Sidama and in Harar, for example — many smallholder farms will pool their coffees at a small local milling station, each contributing his own special coffee. The result is a complex melange of unique flavors, the truest expression of local terroir to be found anywhere on the planet. The rich complexity in a cup of Yirgacheffe, for example, is largely a product of this special combination that occurs nowhere else in the world.

It is difficult to make generalizations about the flavor of Ethiopian coffee, for all the reasons stated above. Furthermore, each coffee growing region is home to unique flavors. These are explained in greater detail in this guide, under the subheadings of each region in Part Two.

If one had to make some broad generalizations about Ethiopian coffee — keeping in mind that there are many exceptions to the rule — one can say the following. Ethiopian coffees tend to be grown at middle-high to very-high altitudes. The result is generally a hard-bean type, with intense flavors and aromatics. Fruit flavors are common in all regions, though the specific fruit character varies from region to region. Berry aromatics are relatively common, as well as citrus and chocolate. Ethiopian coffees can be full-bodied (natural Grade 4 Limu, for instance) or light in body (washed Grade 1 Yirgacheffe, for instance), but in either case the mouthfeel of top quality Ethiopian coffees is generally smooth and pleasing.

Ethiopia grows and exports only arabica coffee, not robusta.

Influence of Soil Type on Coffee Flavor (Video)

Stage one of a long project studying the influence of soil type and weather on coffee flavor profile: on-site in Puerto Rico.

Roast Profiling and Cupping

For the next three days I am in Marin County, California, teaching a class at Boot Coffee Consulting. The course is called Roast Profiling and Cupping. It combines information on sensory analysis, heat-transfer dynamics, and artisan roasting techniques.

The first day of this class begins with, well, coffee of course. Once everyone's acclimated to the lab, where we have several different sample roasters, brewing equipment, an AV set-up, cupping lab, coffee library, etc, we start with a lot of theory. What's the difference between convection, conduction, and radiation when it comes to the development of coffee during the roasting process? How does processing affect the way beans of different densities absorb heat?

Then we dive right into sensory analysis. We do sessions with nuts, dried fruits, chocolates, apples of different acidity levels and sweetness levels, fruits with different kinds of mouthfeel. All this is leading into the really important stuff: the sensory analysis of coffee. Cupping, that is.

We cover cupping vocabulary, cupping protocols, cupping technique, and we do LOTS of triangulation exercises to put people through their paces. And that's all just day one.

Day two and day three involve a lot more theory, but mainly it's about roasting and cupping, and roasting and cupping, and roasting and cupping. I teach or help teach this class several times each year. We have roasters from all over the world come to learn and practice. This class has folks from California, New York, Wisconsin, Seattle, Massachusettes, Australia, and Singapore.

This week we set up a canopy outside because of the heat in Northern California. Students are starting to arrive right now as I type this. Time to go!

"Norwegian Coffee ... Bad!"

Scandinavia is the epicenter of the world quality coffee movement. Last week I was in Stockholm drinking coffee and researching my Nordic roots. At the same time, on the other side of the great peninsula, the Nordic Barista Cup was taking place in Oslo.

I've never been to the Nordic Barista Cup, but it's very high on my list of coffee to-do's. Baristas and coffee professionals from Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland get together once a year and have all kinds of coffee events and parties. Teams from each nation dress up in matching jumpsuits like Olympic athletes, and snapshots from the various parties always show beautiful people having a lovely time.

This year, barista magazine had some top-notch blog coverage.

As for me, I had a lovely time island-hopping in Stockholm. I did some interesting work for Pernod-Ricard, the spirits company. Absolut — a very Swedish vodka, of course — is one of their brands, and that's what took us to Stockholm. But I wasn't doing any work on vodka, but actually on Kahlúa.

I did some very interesting blind tasting of various coffee liqueurs. They are most decidedly not all the same. Some have some extremely disagreeable chemical-rubber tastes underneath all that sugar. I hope to be able to share the outcome of the work I did there on the blog soon; but for now I have to keep it somewhat under wraps.

For you New Yorkers out there, I thought you might get a kick out of this picture. It's a collaboration Absolut did with Spike Lee (no joke).

I uploaded some more pics on my flickr page. Not much coffee related (except the awesome french press hotel coffee I got which made my day on Thursday), but there's some pretty rainbows.

Finally, I shot this video at dinner (amazing food at this restaurant). You can't see anything cause the light is too low. But you can hear what my Swedish friend, Frida, thinks of Norwegian coffee.

Article on Varietals in Fresh Cup

There's a nice article on coffee varietals in the new issue of Fresh Cup, including quotes from George Howell and yours truly! Check it out in print, or read it online here. The article begins on page 62, and it's written by Dan Leif.

Here's a nice quote to give you an idea:

GEISHA: Unless you and your Probat have been holed up in a cave recently, you've heard about this varietal, which has become the toast of Panama's coffee scene. But what does it actually taste like when roasted correctly? Howell answers without hesitation: "Sweet lemon apricot. It's very intense." Humphries is more metaphorical. "It's got a very sweet character, but it's very citrusy," he says. "I always think about fresh-squeezed orange juice from oranges right of the tree, when they're still warm. And it will smell like jasmine or fresh lilies. It's extraordinary."

Eating Coffee Beans in Business Week

A couple weeks back in Brooklyn, I sat down with journalist Benjamin Wallace to eat some coffee beans. He wrote an article for Business Week about "alternative" ways to get your coffee fix, including a cool new coffee-inhaler type device that I got to try. You can read the article here.

Benjamin Wallace was also the writer who, when working on a story for GQ, tasted kopi luwak with me. Here's Ben giving an interesting talk at the TED conference, based on the article he wrote and the research he did for it.

I Should Have Been a Funk Singer (Coffee of the Week)

Here's part two of my visit to the CEL. And yes, I sing on this video, inspired by coffee. If you can't understand my hyper-excited babbling at the end, I'm saying, "Thanks Intelligentsia... Thanks Geoff Watts... Thanks Kenyan Coffee Producers!"

This is my coffee of the week, incidentally. Hands down.

Part one of my visit to the CEL here.

If you don't know what the heck I was singing about during the making of the Chemex, Stephen Morrissey's cool Chemex video here.

Not the same Gichathaini Kenya, but another fresh Kenya from Intelligentsia here.

Scott Rao's book here.

Don't forget to drink lots of coffee before you go out tonight, and Happy New Year everybody!

Awwww... a Paper Cup?

When is a coffee almost perfect? When it's a beautiful, world-class macchiato served in a paper cup.

Lovely lovelies: Espresso Vivace

What the heck is Monsooned Malabar.

The importance of the good macchiato.

All I have to say, my friends, is that Coffee should taste good.

How Define Winter Coffee?

Today I was a little fed up with some sub-par cups of coffee I had in my immediate area over the last few days (cafés and coffees that will remain nameless), so I decided to cut out the middleman and just roast up something from the stores of marvelous green coffees I have tucked away from travels over the last year.

I picked a classic, strictly-high-grown Bourbon from El Salvador and roasted it a couple minutes past first crack on my Gene Café home roaster. This is pretty standard operation for me; I like that style of coffee a great deal.

As soon as I had it cooled down I went ahead and ground some up and made a chemex. It was quite lovely. Rain was beating on the window as dark clouds swept over the hills of Seattle at this darkest time of the year. As I tasted the bright-n-snappy, yet sweet-n-chocolatey character of the coffee, I remarked to my companion "Now this is great wintertime coffee."

But now that I reflect on that for a moment I wonder, just what does that mean? At the time I meant that liveliness of the coffee was invigorating to me on such a gloomy winter day. But there seems to be a great deal of difference of opinion out there about what constitutes "wintery" or "holiday-time" when it comes to specialty beverages.

Let's take three quick examples of "holiday blends" that I have had recently. Descriptions from the companies:

The Celebration Blend from Intelligentsia (a beautiful coffee, if you ask me). Intelly writes

The first thing to surface is a candied orange peel acidity, almost that of a sweet marmalade. Notes of cassis and juniper berry give dimension while the mouthfeel maintains a clean yet rounded cup. Toasted hazelnuts and anisette yield a pleasing aftertaste with hints of baking spice to ring in the season.

The Holiday Blend from Jim's Organic Coffee:

Three rare coffees; Tanzanian Mbeya, Brazil Poco Fundo, and Celebes Toraja White Eagle make up this year’s Holiday Blend. These coffees; roasted to a full city (medium heavy) roast, combine to yield a festive dark berry character; perfect to enjoy the spirit of the season.

And the Holiday Blend from Zoka Coffee:

This year at Zoka we have come upon many great Single Origin coffees. Our 2009 Holiday Blend is comprised of our roasters' favorite 4 coffees from 3 continents, highlighting their individual strengths while almost simultaneously making each other better. With almond in the aroma, this Holiday Blend presents flavors that remind us of our childhood. Graham crackers, cranberry sauce, and fig cookies throughout the cup warm you from the inside out.

Intelligentsia and Zoka both mention baking, evoking spiced cookies and things of that nature. Jim's and Zoka mention berries. It seems to me that these descriptions are trying to make the coffee sounds like a mug of spiced cider or other warm winter treat. This seems reasonable. I would characterize all three descriptions as generally accurate, though the Intelligentsia one is more spot-on in my experience.

Who wouldn't want a coffee that tastes like these? I like them too.

The funny thing is, though, that in winter time I actually crave more fruity, snappy, acidic coffees. If I'm having a big piece of buttery pound cake on Christmas morning, the last kind of coffee I want to have it with is coffee that tastes like more baked goods (well, ok, not the last kind of coffee, but you get my point). I like something to create a contrast. It's the same reason I'm most likely to enjoy a rich, mellow Brazilian when I can have it with something bright and snappy to eat, like fresh strawberries.

But that's just me. What do you think of when you think of "winter coffee?"