Cupping Lab

January 23, 2011

If anyone recalls my previous post regarding a coffee shop review of Joe & the Art of Coffee, you may remember me mentioning the classes they offer there. Well, I finally did it and went to one of their free Cupping Labs!

I rushed over to their 13th St. location after work and barely managed to make it. By the way, they do offer seating at this location! Hallelujah! Although, all of said seating seemed to be taken at that moment. It was a very lively Friday night and the caffeinated patrons were definitely buzzing. After asking the barista where the class was, she informed me that everyone was waiting until the manager was ready and then she would announce the class. While I waited, I looked at the art on the walls from local artists and the ginormous blackboard behind the counter. I was marveling at the lofty position of the manager's office, which you had to reach by ladder into a whole in the wall, when the manager popped out of the office whole, climbed halfway down the ladder, stopped, turned around, and with a Japanese teakettle in one hand and the other clinging to the ladder she made the announcement of  the beginning of the lab. She looked like a jaunty coffee pirate. She had short black hair in a pixy cut, a plaid shirt, jeans, a grey sailors cap, 2 lip rings at the left corner of her mouth and a crystal stud sparkling from her right cheekbone. We all followed our fearless leader past a tall fridge crammed with milk, squeezed past a couple of trashcans and walked down a narrow staircase into the basement. The first thing I noticed was the smell of coffee everywhere. Heaven. It was a room filled with sinks and shelves of coffee machines and coffee paraphernalia, so I wont describe every little detail. It was amazing though.

 

Buono Coffee Drip Kettle $59

Everyone who showed up for the class was very friendly and eager to learn. There were people from Spain, Greece, Japan, and NY (of course). Most of the 10 person crowd seemed middle aged, but we were all newbies to the cupping experience and we were told that we would not be doing a blind cupping today because of that.

Our pirate queen led us through the ritual as precise as any Japanese tea ceremony. She seemed to be very knowledgeable and told us how she had started in Seattle (the coffee capitol of the US) and had helped to test some of the first of the elusive Clover machines!

 

We learned how to experience the coffee in its many forms, with all of our senses. We had three regions to test from:  Brazil, El Salvador and Rwanda. We smelled it dry, we smelled it wet, we broke the crust and smelled it again, we tasted it hot, we tasted it cold. We tried to identify all the different nuances of flavor, acidity, mouth-feel, and aftertaste. (Interesting Tip- you taste so much more of the flavor when it's cold than when it's hot!)

In the end, I decided my favorite was Brazil and, a close second, was Rwanda. All in all, it lasted an hour and I was sad to see it end. It was nice to be around so many people who shared the same passion as me. I thought it was a great experience and would definitely recommend more classes.

Has anyone else been to one of these classes? How was your class compared to mine? I'd love to hear your story!