GroundLevelCoffee

… of coffee cupping.

It’s one of those things that you wish you could do, but don’t know the best place to begin.

Perhaps it’s best left up to the experts - but they may be wrong. And we each taste differently and enjoy different aromas and flavours.

Another thing with aromas and flavours is that they allow or encourage us to reminisce - they hint at something in our memories - maybe a place, or an occasion where we smelt or tasted that before.

But at the end of the day I think it’s important when trying coffee to know if it’s good and if it’s worth drinking (or buying), and how something better may be able to be coaxed from the bean through a different roast.

In recent weeks I’ve had a bit of a search over the net for information about coffee cupping. There’s a Beginner’s Guide to Cupping on CoffeeGeek. Fortune Elkins often speaks of cupping on her bread coffee chocolate yoga blog. (Like here for example). Tom Owen from Sweet Maria’s has a monochrome copy of the SCAA’s flavour wheels available.

I’ve tried cupping only a few times. The first time was at a coffee geek gathering early last year. The second time was at the OzGreens gathering at Toby’s Estate a few weeks ago. That again piqued my curiosity and so I’ve sprung for a copy of Ted Lingle’s Coffee Cupper’s Handbook from Sweet Maria’s.

It arrived today and so I’ll commence a deeper journey in the future into cupping. The mysterious art may lose some if its mystery.