I´ve decided to look into the final part how to become a coffee connaiseeur: the tasting technique.
When you learn how you evaluate the aroma of coffee aroma it helps you define the flavor profile of your coffee. Furthermore it helps you understand if the coffee is defective and when if you want to blend beans from different countries into your own blend - you need to know how to blend it right. This is also called: "The Cupping Method"
How to go about it
It is important that you do the coffee tasting, or "cupping", in the same manner every time. Otherwise you have no way to ensure that the difference in the taste of coffee beans has nothing to do with outside factors of the coffee and water temperature.
You do the "cupping" in the following way according to Passion for Coffee:
1. Make a selection of the beans that you want to taste.
2. Take a quarter ounce of coarse ground roasted coffee.
3. Heat 5 ounces of water to just below the boiling point.
4. Pour the water over the coffee in a circular motion.
5. Dip a spoon into the cup (with your nose close to the cup) so that it breaks the top layer of that coffee grinds that floated to the top.
6. Take approximately half a spoonful of the liquid from the cup.
7. Quaff it with a loud slurping noise. The noise is made so that you can mix the liquid with the air, spraying it directly over your tongue.
8. Savor, swirl the coffee once - then spit out the liquid.
Coffee cupping helps the tongue to discriminate among the many subtle flavors of coffee.
Don´t make it too serious though - coffee cupping is not only for finding the right blend but also something that is fun and that you can share with other people.
I have sourced much of my material from Passion for Coffee
There is plenty more on the web, also web tutorials on You Tube etc. Here are two others that I myself find interesting:
http://www.zecuppa.com/coffeeterms-cupping-tasting.htm
http://www.coffeeresearch.org/coffee/cupping.htm
Happy cupping!
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