ok... couldnt wait any longer.. ground up the first few beans at 0600 this morning.. and I am now on my 2nd cup!
please DO NOT let my evaluation sway anyone elses opinion or evaluation... I openly admit I am NOT qualified to do this.. prior to this exercise my coffee rating experience consisted of thinking "wow! this stuff tastes great!" or "yuck! this stuff sucks!".. Ive never taken it much further... I have a general understanding of what I like (I tend to gravitate toward dark roasts, and bold flavors...).. but thats about it...
I "cheated" a little bit last night.. I went and read probably 20 online coffee reviews.. I made a list of all the things I should be looking for, the common flavors people seem to find, etc.. I thought it would be a whole lot easier to identify "what" certain things are by tasting and then looking at a list of potentials.. as opposed to taking a sip, thinking to myself "thats sort of sweet" or "thats sort of acidic" and then trying to figure out what kind of sweet it is or what kind of acid it is on my own...
I used each of Kev's listed discriminators.. and rated each one on a scale of 1-10.. with ten being "the balls!
" and 1 being "this tastes like balls!
"....
Here we go.....
Country/Region: Ethiopia
Farm: Unknown
Grade: 2?
Processed: Wet
Varietal: Unknown
Cupper: mdwest
Roaster: thejavaman
8.0 Dry Aroma - Very strong. When I first opened the bag I was practically knocked over with really powerful "coffee" smell. Lots of cocoa. significantly sweet overtones. This was the single best thing about the entire experience. The scent was excellent. Maybe this is because I've never had coffee this fresh before (never gotten beans just a couple of days after they were roasted.. always bought "premium", already roasted beans, from grocery stores, etc..
5.0 Wet Aroma - Was surprisingly underwhelmed here. hints of floral. but the depth and power of the "smell" was limited..
6.5 Acidity - Medium? I dont really have a whole lot to compare this to as I have never really considered acidity when drinking coffee before.. this is certainly more "bright" and acidic than most coffees I drink.. enjoyable!
5.5 Body - Medium to light? Again, not something I have put a whole lot of consideration into prior to this experiment.. not super complex.. but not at all bad...
7.0 Flavor - Mostly floral with hints of honey and citrus. Not as complex as expected, but the flavors were very nice and enjoyable
6.0 Aftertaste - Slightly bitter. hints of baked or cooked coconut in there?
Total points: 38
Average: 6.33
Not sure if I did this again tomorrow blind if I would get the same results.. again, this is new territory for me.. but overall, I enjoyed the cup and thought it was "good".. I would drink it again.. What I enjoyed more than the coffee itself, was the exercise.. was pretty cool sitting down and trying to identify all the different aspects, tastes, etc.. and how they work together.. was also fun doing the preliminary research and reading..
the first cup was taken black... this is NOT how I normally drink coffee.. typically I take a small amount of sugar (1 teaspoon) and a small amount of milk (1 teaspoon) in a fairly large cup (the cups I use are probably 25% larger than a standard mug"...
the second cup (that I am drinking now) is being drank much more casually... and has the sugar and milk added... Had I done this on the first cup, I probably would have rated a couple of categories higher.. (Im enjoying the second cup much more).. the second cup I am getting a slightly silky/oily/syrupy mouthfeel that I normally associate with ethiopian coffee (and really like).. I didnt get this very much on the first cup..
Great experience overall... thanks for the help with this Kev! Something tells me you might have put me on yet another slippery slope and I might start the "occasional" home roast pretty soon....
Cant wait for the third cup.. Im pairing that one with the PAM 80 featured earlier!
