Coffee Cupping

Not long after arriving in Vancouver I signed up to the coffeegeek Vancouver event mailing list. From time to time Mark Prince, the founder of coffeegeek.com organises some kind of get together for coffeegeeks in the Vancouver area. Last Sunday afternoon was the first such event that I have been invited to, and hopefully it won't be the last. This particular event was a cupping of several of the cup of excellence winners from Brazil. Cup of Excellence is a competition that selects the very best coffee produced in that country for that particular year. The winners are auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The cupping that I went to was a cupping of the 5 winning coffees from Brazil. The whole cupping thing was a new experience to me, but one I had read a bit about in the past and had always wanted to try it, so this was a great opportunity. Basically cupping involves brewing several different coffees in separate cups at the same time, keeping as many of the variables constant as possible (ie grind size, roast level, roast date, brew time etc) then taking a spoon and slurping spoonfuls of coffee and comparing them to each other. You repeat this several times as the coffees cool to see how the flavours change as the temperature drops. Of the five coffees only one of them tasted significantly different to me at first, and I found that the one that tasted different was my least favourite of the five (although still very nice). It was pretty interesting hearing some of the others describing what they were tasting, although I couldn't taste any fruit punch in cup E, it just tasted like very nice coffee to me. In one of the coffees I did start to detect what could be described as a citrus kind of taste but only very slightly. When it came time to pick our favourite Reuben was the only one there that identified the number 1 bean as being his favourite. The rest of us all chose number 5 and I actually thought bean number 1 was the worst one there, I guess taste is a very subjective thing.

After the cupping we got to sample three very special coffees as a french press. The first one was a Panama something, and roasted it retails at around US$110 a pound. By far the most expensive coffee I have ever tried. It was also the nicest french press I have had too. A very unique taste that we all agreed was exceptionally pleasing.

The second bean was the pick of the crop from the Skybury Farms in Australia. It also retailed at a pretty high price, though not nearly as high as the Panama. I didn't really like it much, actually none of us thought it was anything special. Sure it was better than your typical supermarket coffee but for the price I certainly wouldn't say it was value for money.

The third bean was a very rare Kona Peaberry. Very little of this bean is made available each year as the farmers keep the peaberry for themselves because it is so good and also because only a very small percentage of beans are peaberry beans. The coffee came from Smiths Farms a coffee farmer in Kona that sells direct to the public (well at least to US and Canada anyway). I am still deciding whether I will order any to take back to NZ, it was a very nice french press but I have been told it doesn't work so well as an espresso.

Before we left Mark Prince's house (where the cupping took place) we each got to choose 1 of the beans we sampled to take home with us. This was a very generous thing for Mark to do as some of the beans were not cheap. The only ones we were not allowed were the Panama beans (not surprising given the cost of them) and one of the Brazilians because Mark really liked them. I chose the Kona Peaberry and have been enjoying them over the last couple of days. Unfortunately as I have been typing this I have also been drinking my last cup of the Kona, but boy was it good. Reuben selected one of the Brazilian beans and seeing as he doesn't have a grinder he kindly gave them to me, so I will be able to have another very nice coffee for breakfast in the morning. Yummy.

I am going to be away for the next few days so I might have to have a couple of cups because I don't want the beans to go stale while I am gone. I am going to Whistler with Roz and Reuben for a couple of days to get a bit of snowboarding action in. The weather has been fantastic over the last week with hardly a cloud in the sky, not great in terms of fresh snow I guess but if the weather holds out it should still be pretty nice. We are renting a car, so it will be my first time driving any significant distance in a left hand drive car, should be interesting. I have been considering taking my grinder away with me, but it may be a bit of a pain carrying on the bus on my way to work in the morning.

Sorry no pictures today. I have a couple on my camera of a few meals I had last week but can't be bothered getting them off the camera at the moment.