Coffee Cupping: How to Taste like a Pro

If you hang around "third-wave" coffee houses or coffee geeks you probably have heard the term "cupping." Yesterday I learned the basics of how it works at Irving Farm Coffee Roasters' spanking new Loft, not too far away from Union Square.

"Cupping" is the term coffee buyers use for tasting and evaluating coffees. At my Intro to Cupping class, we learned there are three categories of aromas that we'd be looking for. Enzymatic aromas relate to the plant-based characteristics of the coffee bean, and include the floral, citrusy and berry-like. Sugar burning aromas are the result of the sugars in the bean meeting heat. Not surprisingly, these tend to the deeper end of the spectrum: nut, malt, syrup, honey, chocolate or vanilla. Then there are the dry distillate aromas, which go even deeper, into territory that might be described by expert cuppers as smoky (pipe tobacco), ashy, medicinal (camphoric), or warming (cedar, pepper).

Our instructor Josh Littlefield even provided us with this handy flavor wheel to arm us with some descriptive adjectives to apply to our smell and taste sensations later on. As with my sake tasting experience, a big part of being able to identify the different aromas you discern is having the descriptive vocabulary to attach to them. Those terms make it easier to remember and describe different coffees or sakes.

The tasting was a two-part process: first we tasted from coffee that had been brewed with 205-degree fahrenheit water poured over grounds and steeped for about four minutes. A "crust" forms on top, so we slid our spoons in at 45-degree angles to break the crust and scoop up clean brewed coffee. We slurped and inhaled at the same time to maximize access to the aromas, tasting five different coffees that ranged from super peanutty to tea-like, to umami-filled, to one that tasted like blueberries. Our favorite was the Los Ninos honey process from El Salvador, which instead of being put in a mechanical dryer, is left to dry in the sun, giving it richer, honeyed deliciousness. (To learn the full story of how this coffee farm, Talnamica, and its owners, Hermann and Nena Mendez and their daughter Mayita, became part of the Irving Farm family, read my Edible Manhattan story on Irving Farm here.) Unfortunately Irving Farm has only made a small experimental batch of the Los Ninos; it'll be gone soon.

We then tasted pour-over versions of the same coffees, which lost a bit in aroma bandwith compared to the steeped coffee. To get the fullest range of aromas, Josh recommended a French-press coffee maker.

Here is another cool thing we got to sample: 36 tiny bottles of different coffee aromas (rose, coriander, hazelnut), synthetically replicated by Le Nez du Cafe, a kind of study guide or cheat sheet for coffee professionals or highly motivated amateurs.

And for a peek into the detail that the pros go into when they cup, here's a page out of Irving Farm's cupping notes, sprinkled with scribblings like "jam toast" or "cherry cola."

Josh told us that there are over 400 aroma/flavor compounds in coffee, more than twice that of wine, though he admitted that wine people might take issue with that claim to tasting complexity hegemony.

For those who are interested, every Thursday at 10 am, Irving Farm holds a public cupping at its Loft.

Exploring One-Pot "Nabe" Cooking with Gramercy Tavern's Eric Takahashi

Chefs Takahashi and Romano.
Photo by George Hirose

One of the best things about the arrival of winter is the return of cold-weather comfort foods. For the Japanese, that means nabe-ryori, or one-pot cooking, preferably done tableside. It’s warming, it’s social, it’s delicious, and much cheaper than a tropical vacation.

To celebrate this tradition, Eric Takahashi, a cook at Gramercy Tavern, offered a nabe workshop a group I belong to called JAJA (Japanese Americans and Japanese in America). On hand to act as his assistant was recently retired Union Square Hospitality Group director of culinary development Michael Romano, whose work in Tokyo I recently chronicled.

Chef Takahashi likes to shop at the greenmarket, so the idea was to stage a summit between the greenmarket and the hot pot, a pretty enticing idea for a season in which staving off root vegetable fatigue is a major challenge. The demonstration took place in the kitchen of a loft near Union Square, generously offered by a JAJA member. 

Exhibit A was yosenabe, most often a mix of fish and meat trimmings (yose means “to put aside”), but in this evening's rendition, featuring flavorful rack of pork from Heritage Foods. Chef Takahashi started by building a dashi, or broth with konbu (dried seaweed), and water.  Most of the konbu available here is harvested in Hokkaido, the chef informed us, where very cold waters promote wide ribbons of seaweed. He prefers the narrower, and more intensely flavored konbu from the warmer waters of Okinawa. 

Next, strips of Napa cabbage, carrot, shiitake and white honshimeji mushrooms, cubed firm tofu, long scallions and shirataki (konjac yam noodles) went into the pot. Traditionally chrysanthemum leaves or spinach add a dash of green, but Chef Takahashi used locally grown mizuna from Lani’s Farm instead. He dislikes overly salty food, so he added salt and soy sauce sparingly.

Since this is a fairly light dish, it’s enhanced by dipping the pot’s components in a ponzu sauce before eating. This was Exhibit B. Chef Takahashi likes to makes his ponzu

Exhibit C: Zosui.
Photo by George Hirose

with a ratio of two parts dark soy sauce, one part yuzu, lime or sudachi juice, half part sake (alcohol burned off), a square of dried konbu (4” square per two cups of soy sauce), and one part bonito flakes. Let this marinate overnight or up to a week in the fridge, then strain the bonito and konbu and save for another use.

One fun suggestion of the chef’s:  you can make a great furikake, (a condiment for sprinkling on top of steamed rice) by cooking down the marinated bonito flakes and konbu with a little soy sauce in a non-stick pan until it’s completely dry and crunchy. Optional adds include some rehydrated dried hijiki and toasted sesame seeds.  

 For Exhibit C, chef Takahashi showed us how he makes a thick rice porridge called zosui with the rich broth that is left when all the nabe contents have been eaten. He simply juliennes the konbu that was used to flavor the nabe, adds cooked rice and beaten egg to bind it, and a little salt. The addition homemade pickled vegetables made with nuka, or fermented milled rice bran, gives the zosui that zing that completes the dish.

Stay warm this winter, friends, and eat nabe!