Never Gonna Get to Sleep Tonight

Okay, it’s 10pm and I’m still drinking (caffeinated) coffee. But if I have important learning to undertake gosh darnit, and I am trying to uncover all the flavors hidden in my little mug ‘o joe.

So, as I’ve mentioned, I’m working on the Panamanian beans.  I had a cup this morning and took some notes as I sipped.  Here’s what I wrote:

“hot,”  ”a little bitter aftertaste”, “drinkable”, “black”, “balanced”, “no milk-sugar”…  Yes, the height of eloquence here!

I brewed another cup this evening and decided it was time to make a forray into the vast cyber coffee world to do a little research on how to taste this coffee in my hand.   I started w/ my trusty wikipedia.  Then moved onto cooler sounding blog names like:  www.ineedcoffee.com and  www.passionforcoffee.com

Here’s the info that stood out to me:

• I should probably re-evaluate my affinity for french roast.  It’s one of the darker roasts and, while it has a strong flavor, many of the flavor nuances are burned off in the longer roasting process.  So, I wouldn’t be able to pick up that one kind of bean tasted floral and another citrusy, for example.  Not that I can now, but anyway, thinking optimistically.
• True coffee snobbery means doing a coffee “cupping”.  Basically a coffee tasting in which you pour boiling water over coffee grounds, wait a couple of minutes, push the floating grounds apart w/ a spoon.  Take a big ole whiff of the brew.  Dip your spoon back in it and slurp it all around your mouth. Not at that stage quite yet.  Still opting for old fashioned “make it in a coffee maker” way.
• Coffee has 800 flavor characteristics (while wine has just 400).  Interesante.

So, what is some of the descriptive lingo I should employ in my future coffee evaluations?    The websites I visited say that professional coffee cuppers talk about differences in qualities such as “taste, body (how it feels in your mouth…oiliness), acidity, and aftertaste” among other things.  I liked the lesson in how to taste coffee HERE.   I also like Ed Loy’s suggestion from the previous post to just use whatever language comes to mind in describing what I taste.  That appeals to my sensibilities, I must say.

I guess I’ll play it by ear by now and, well, just practice.

Okay, so, coffee’s in my hand, let’s revisit that Panamanian brew, 

TASTE:  Ummm…taste’s like unsweetened baker’s chocolate?

BODY:  Ummmm…Full?

ACIDITY:  Yes?…Kinda bitter?

AFTERTASTE:  Ummm…I don’t know.  There is one.  What is it?  Bitter?  There’s something else too.  What?  Like a burnt marshmallow???

AROMA:  Sweet

 

Am I doing this right?  As you can see, we’re starting at the ground floor here, folks!