Sometimes my life is pretty cool. Monday I went to a coffee tasting class by myself. I tried to talk a friend into going with but she wasn’t feeling well. So coffee is grown in South America, Africa, and it’s starting to be grown in China. The reason why quality coffee is so expensive is that Asia(China and Japan mainly) has kinda discovered how awesome coffee is in the last 10 years or so. There is a higher demand than there is supply because of this. It’s why China is starting to try and grow their own coffee.
The class was held at a little coffee shop near me called Drachenfutter which is a German word meaning to feed your dragon. It’s a colloquialism which refers to getting your significant other food when they are angry at you. German has so many cool words. I found out about the class on FB.
So I walk in and the place is deserted other than staff and one other gal. I’m only a couple minutes early. The place is a classic coffee shop with couches and a fireplace and board games. I’m of course like “Hi, I’m here for the coffee tasting class?” The owner comes over and is like I’m so excited you’re here. I’m just kinda sitting there watching them get set up. They’re bringing out pots of hot water. The guy teaching the class is setting out 8 tiny bowls with coffee grounds in them. He looks like a normal guy come to find out he has a 2.6 million dollar insurance policy on his tongue!
He’s the owner of the company that the coffee shop buys their coffee from. It’s like his second business. He started out in printing and had a really successful company but got super burnt out, just dreaded going to work. Every morning though he’d see these people who were happy to be going to work…at the coffee shop across from his company. So he sold his company and started a coffee roasting company.
Every morning the guy and some of his employees taste the coffee that’s been roasted. It’s kind of a quality control thing. Coffee tasting is actually called cupping. The process is kinda like how you taste whisky more so than wine. You start by smelling the grounds. Then you add some hot water and smell it again. Then you take a spoon very similar to a soup spoon and kinda pass it through the coffee and smell the back of it, rinsing it off in hot water between cups. Then you scoop up some of the coffee in the spoon and you slurp it. Yes slurp it. Me, one other girl, and the coffee shop’s employees are all just standing around a table slurping coffee out of soup spoons;) It was kinda hilarious.
There were 4 different coffees, one from china, one from Africa, and I think two from South America. What’s interesting is that coffee has different flavors depending on where it is grown due to the different soils. So one of the coffees had a lovely earthy dark chocolate taste, two were kinda acidic and fruity, and the last one was just kinda mild. An interesting fact men 18-34ish tend to prefer more acidic coffees while after that they tend to like less acidic. Women 18-35ish tend to prefer earthier darker coffees.
I learned so much about coffee and all the steps that go into getting to the point of coffee grounds. It was a lot of fun and I’m definitely considering going to the next one which is about paring foods and coffee.
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