Yes, really, this profound display of intelligence was uttered from my lips on Thursday.
Once again, I was at a cupping/tasting at Coffee Labs. Pretty soon they are going to ask me to pay rent – I’m there ALL the time. In part because Rasheed make the best cappuccinos, in part because a good conversation with a complete stranger is all but inevitable, in part because Sara is there and I can’t be away from her more then 24 hours or my head will explode.
On Thurday, Sara, Doug, Jefferson and I sat down next to the big brown roaster and tested our tasting talents. We started with a sampling of nuts – pecans, walnuts, almonds and peanuts. We silently nibbled on each, jotting down our thoughts on the flavors we found, the way the nut spread through our mouth, and anything else that struck us as notable. After working our way through the samples we conferred.
I felt a ping of self-satisfaction when words I wrote were in others descriptions. I am NOT completely off base, hallelujah.
Then, came heaven…
Four small, shiny, round, brown plates filled with the glory that is chocolate.
The fastest way to my heart is 70% cocoa dark chocolate; if Doug had asked me to marry him right then, I might have said yes.
We tried milk, semi-sweet, DARK, and baker’s chocolate. It was with a mouth full of milk chocolate that I announced to the employees of Coffee Labs “I love my job…” – confused looks all around – “….umm…I don’t work here”.
At the end of each food round we tasted a coffee and tried to be as specific as possible about the kind of nut and chocolate tastes we detected in the coffee. The Labs staff then had to guess which coffee it was (I am proud to say that Sara was correct in her guesses). This exercise was wonderful in helping me develop a clearer understanding of the “coffee terms”, the process of tasting, and how to talk about what my senses detect.
During this tasting I focused on the feel of each item. Dry, creamy, front of the tongue, in the cheeks, short flavor, clear peak, steady tastes, banana-y, chalky, smooth, round, intense, flat, sand paper, soft and so on. Narrowing the scope of the tasting simplified the process, I was not teasing other flavors out of the nuts and chocolate. However, I was stretched deep into the distant corners of my vocabulary hunting for words to suit the sensations. My internal rolodex of descriptive terms was exhausted in a hour’s time.
The afternoon concluded with gobs of laughter, a quick clean-up and a little bit of “oh, there’s left over chocolate – guess someone’s gonna have to eat it”.
-Melanie “I swear I have a chubby six-year-old boy stuck in my belly” Brubaker
P.S. Ten Days!
I LOVE chocolate!!! When I was preparing for the movers to arrive for our move back to Colorado, I found an 8 ounce bar of semi-sweet baking chocolate in the kitchen cabinet. I knew the packers wouldn’t pack it, so I ate the whole thing in one sitting!
Irene, KozeeLady