Top 10 Signs that you're not quite the coffee aficionado you imagine yourself to be:

1. You only buy the best flavored beans: "Um, hazelnut coffee is my favorite, but I'll drink chocolate-pecan any day."
2. You consider a white-chocolate mocha to be "gourmet."
3. You hear the word "cappuccino" and think of a big-gulp sized cup.
4. You're sure that the best coffee comes from Colombia.
5. "Espresso? Yuck!"
6. "Starbucks or Tullys? They're both so good--how do I choose?"
7. "Gross, I can taste the coffee in this latte!"
8. You order your drink with half soy milk, half non-fat.
9. You think regular coffee means "sugar and cream."
10. You're sure that dark roasted coffee is "rich and delicious."

"I am really into coffee. Oh, I am a coffee snob."

I often hear something like this, usually a half a second before I hear something like the following:

"Um, so is your pumpkin syrup really good?"

To which I answer:

"I'm sorry, but we don't carry pumpkin syrup."

I usually recieve quite the eye-roll at this point. Then the customer asks in an exasperated tone:
"Well then, how's your egg-nog latte?"

To which I retort in my most condescending tone:

"I'm sorry, we don't have egg-nog, but I hear Starbucks makes a mean one."

I usually get an even bigger eye-roll on that one.

My point is, most people who come to a coffee shop are not really interested in coffee. They think of a cafe as a grown-up candy store. "It's just like candy, but with caffeine, so it's a big-boy drink!" Judging from my experience, I'd say that 70% of coffee shop customers describe themselves as "into coffee." Of those 70%, only the tiny minority ever drink coffee without doing something to cover-up the taste (latte, cream and sugar, etc...). Again, only the minority know that coffee is an agricultural product. (That's right, it doesn't grow in cans already roasted! Really? Yes it's true.)

I guess that's ok. But, unless you're in the minority, you're not really "into coffee" no matter how loudly and pretentiously you announce that you are to your friends. If you're ok with that, then, God bless you: get your pumpkin latte. Cover up your coffee with whatever you want.

More on Defects

(Moron Defects)

One of the more interesting coffees available these days is Monsooned Indian Coffee. You might know it as "Monsooned Malabar," or "Coelho's Gold," or some other name. In any case, monsooned coffee is coffee that has been processed and then laid out in open sided warehouses during monsoon season in India, allowing the ultra-moist winds access to the coffee. The monsooning process is stopped when the beans reach 14% moisture (as compared to the 10% moisture the green beans start with before monsooning). At this point, the beans are swollen (almost twice their starting size), and have turned yellow. The resulting taste is a coffee that has no acid (taste), but a big, syrupy body, with herbal, vegetabally, spicy, and chocolate notes. It's a bit funky--and by "a bit", I mean really, really. It's useful in blends, especially espresso, but rarely served straight.

The monsooning process came about as Indian coffee producers tried to mimic the taste of coffees that had been shipped from India in times past. These coffees had sat on ship decks and in leaky hulls as they passed around the horn of Africa and on to Europe. By the time they arrived they were musty, swollen, yellow, and tasted unlike any other coffee. In the modern era, shipping methods are a bit more reliable, that is, water and air tight, even refridgerated; Coffee doesn't get funky just by shipping it. It needs a bit of help--thus the monsooning process.

With any other coffee, we would consider a musty swollen bean to be contaminated, defective. We wouldn't consider using it; It would be sold to Folgers or some other low grade roaster. However, we in the specialty coffee industry pay a premium for monsooned Indian coffee.

Defect or desireable?

On coffee "defects"

In the coffee world there is a bit of a controversy over whether certain tastes in coffees are defects or unique and desireable attributes. Perhaps the most famous of these is the wild (literally and figuratively) coffee of Yemen. The taste profile of coffees from Yemen is often winey, with tastes of currant and other berries, as well a natural chocolate note. The best cup of coffee I've ever had was a Mocha-Sanani (from Yemen), yet I've never been able to reproduce that taste, though I bought Sanani from the same roaster just a month after my first memorable cup. The reason--Sanani coffee is harvested, often, from wild trees in an unregulated manner. The coffee varies greatly from bag to bag--even cup to cup. Often the coffee cherries are harvested not only from the tree, but from the ground where they have fallen. These coffees are harvested, perhaps, by goat-herders looking to make a suplemental income, or by other coffee "non-profesionals" who follow no regulations in harvesting and processing their coffee. The amazing charactersitics of these beans come, partially, from the coffee-cherry drying, perhaps fermenting, on the bean. In Latin-America, a coffee processed this way would be considered majorly defective, and would be sold for rock-bottom prices. Whereas coffee from Yemen (like the Sanani) garner prices far above the market average and are prized by top roasters.

Defect or Desirable?

I fall on the "Desireable" side of the fence.

A little edumacation

"Rarely is the question asked: 'Is our children learning?'" -G.W.

Just to make sure we're learning, and to keep pesky Papa Herman happy, I'll start a little series on coffee ed. There's a lot of info out there that is more complete than what I'll write, but none will be as sassy.

Papa Herman: "I have no sense of smell. Will that effect how my coffee tastes?"

Larry the Barista: "The word is affect, not effect."

P H: "First of all, that's not fair--you're making up my part of the conversation. How can you criticize my grammar? Secondly, what about my original question?"

L.t.B: Well, as long as you've learned your lesson, we can move on to your question: Yes, your useless nose does affect (that is, it causes an effect, see the difference?) how you taste coffee. That is, you're missing most of the taste. Your tongue can only sense sweet, sour/bitter, and salt. Any other "taste" comes from your sense of smell. With your limited abilites, you will be able tell if the coffee is over-roasted (bitter/biting), brewed at too low a temperature (sour), has a natural sweetness, or perhaps, as our head-roaster claims, you'll detect the rare "salty" taste.
What can I say--you're missing all the nuance. Life could be worse, at least you still get the caffeine buzz.

P. H.: Thanks for the explanation, grammar nazi.

L.t.B.: No problem. That's...what I do.