S4:EP11: COFFEE SMARTER
Topic: Tasting Coffee
Guest: Siri Simran Khalsa, Lofty Coffee Company
Title: Director of Coffee
Instagram: @loftycoffeeco, @SDCoffeeNetwork
Website: www.loftycoffee.com
There are so many things from this episode and from the world of coffee to share that I’m just going to jump into it. If you want to taste coffee like a pro, follow these steps:
Smell the dry beans before grinding.
Pour hot water over the grinds. A crust will form.
Break the crust using a coffee cupping spoon* to push back the grinds in the coffee cupping bowl.*
Smell the wet aroma. Really get your nose close and take in the scents wafting around you.
Use the spoon to SLURP some coffee. Slurping will help you to spread coffee across your entire palate. The air flowing in will spread out the flavors across all of your taste buds
PRO-TIP: Taste as the coffee cools to avoid burning the tongue and to better identify subtle, nuanced flavors and/or off-flavors that you may not be able to process when the coffee is to hot.
*These are some official cupping tools, but a soup spoon and small soup bowl could work too…Just saying.
While you are tasting, you are looking for the following qualities in addition to flavors and after-taste flavors:
Acidity
Body
Sweetness
Bitterness
There are a lot of tools to help you in this process. If you’re just starting out, the coffee flavor wheel is the big one. Start in the middle and identify more general flavor characteristics and work your way out. I really like this one from Counter Culture Coffee.
A new-to-me tool is an aroma chart. Siri was talking about the Le Nez du Café Revelation kit, which has charts, descriptions, and the aromas themselves distilled in alcohol to refer to. The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) also has its version of an aroma kit. Both are pretty expensive. I’ll be starting with this chart I found online.
It isn’t as advanced as the other aroma wheels but I’m just getting started at including scents into my tasting intentions.
FROM THE SHOW
This article about tasting colors and how color can impact our perception of flavor is pretty cool. Read “Can you Taste The Colors” on Science Friday.
Beyond impacting perception, the ability to taste colors or to associate color with other senses can be a form of synesthesia. Technically speaking, it refers to how using one sense activates a second sense. There are more than 80 forms of synesthesia. The most common are associating numbers and letters with colors or seeing sounds, like musical notes, as colors. Read more about synesthesia.My wife and I are dog people. We were the proud parents of a Boston Terrier named Dilla Mac Diesel Woldt-Hankes the Third, but since she passed, we haven’t been ready for a dog of our own. However, we’ve found PACT for Animals. It is a pretty cool program in which we provide temporary fostering for a deployed member of the military or someone with a temporary need due to a hospital stay or medical concern.
Right now, I’ve been hanging out with Mick. He isn’t sure why I sometimes go into the closet podcasting booth for hours at a time, but he regularly checks in to make sure I’m still in there. We’re his fosters now, but he’ll go home when his owner returns from deployment.
One of the very first Coffee Smarter episodes featured a detailed description of the coffee cupping (tasting) process. Cupping allows you to taste lots of samples at once and maintain consistency across the tasting. You can check that out here:
NOT FROM THE SHOW
Caffeine overdose is a real thing. A 29-year old Welshman died last year after accidentally overdosing on a caffeine supplement causing caffeine toxicity. I include this here because the amount he ingested was compared to cups of coffee. Per the linked article, a typical coffee produces 2-4 mg per liter. Tom Mansfield consumed an estimated 392 mg or the equivalent of 200 cups of coffee in one gulp. Read the Article on Yahoo News.
R!WC INDUSTRY PARTNERS
COFFEE JOBS: Steady State Roasting is hiring a barista and have managerial opening. Email resume to: hello@steadystateroasting.com
See you Friday.
The R!WC Industry Partners are awesome. Click these links. Drink their coffees and whiskeys. Visit their cafes. Support local coffee shops. You won’t be disappointed.
Zumbar Coffee & Tea • First Light Coffee Whiskey • Leap Coffee • Steady State Roasting • CAFÉ LaTERRE • Mostra Coffee • Cape Horn Coffee Importers • Marea Coffee • Coffee Cycle • Camp Coffee Company • Ignite Coffee Company
UPCOMING COFFEE SMARTER TOPICS
Milk: Steaming, Frothing, non-dairy, drink making, chemistry.
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Coffee Smarter: Tasting Coffee