- What's going on guys?
My fellow coffee friends.
Today we're gonna talk
about different roasts.
We're gonna talk about
how to taste differences
between the different roasts,
and we're gonna cup a
coffee with my friend Eric.
It's gonna be a lot of fun.
Let's get started.
(uplifting electronic music)
So today's topic is actually
sourced from the comments.
We'll be talking about
Daniel and Matt's question
about best roast, different flavors,
and different varieties,
and origins, you know,
what are they like?
What we're going to do today to sort of
explore this topic is we're going to do
a professional tasting called the cupping.
A lot of coffee
professionals use cuppings to
calibrate roast profiles
for their single origins
figuring out which coffee
should go with which blends
comparing and scoring coffees, a variety
of different ways to use what
we learn on the cupping table.
And so we're gonna go
through this process.
I'm going to have a friend
come and taste coffee with me
because at the end of the
day, it's an adventure
and it should be shared.
Before I begin I want to mention just a
couple things about my
personal preference.
I like to drink coffee
black and for that reason
I tend to like medium to
light roasted coffees,
but I like dark chocolates, you know,
they have like a nice tangy sweetness.
They've got great aromatics to it,
and they have a great texture,
a nice fudegy, chocolatey,
velvety texture.
If you like to drink your coffees black,
I recommend starting at medium.
Even if you like to drink
it with milk and sugar,
I'd recommend starting it with medium.
Medium coffees tend to have enough body
to withstand some dilution
whether that's with sugar or cream.
If you find that your coffee
taste a little diluted when
you add cream and sugar,
go ahead and try a little
bit of a darker roast.
I tend to find that those
stand up to dilution a little bit better.
The first time I cupped
coffee was probably
five to six years ago.
I had just started my coffee journey and,
working at a cafe and,
I wanted to know more about
what to taste for in coffee.
After the experience I realized
that I didn't know anything
of what I was tasting, but
it was eye-opening because
I realized that I needed
other people's perspectives
to better understand and
create a shared language
for what it is that I'm
experiencing as I'm tasting coffees.
So what we're going to do
is we're gonna do a cupping together.
I don't have a professional
set up because,
if you wanna try this at
home you should be able to.
I just have some large
glasses, some tall glasses,
some hot water, I've got a coffee grinder
over here and three different coffees.
Doing this will help you taste coffee,
it won't necessarily be a
drinkable beverage at the end.
So the first step in cupping is grinding
the coffee beans, of course, and then
what we like to do is kind of tap it
on its side so we can get
the coffee beans a little bit
into the air and we get the dry aroma.
The second step is pouring the hot water
and we let that saturate for
about four minutes total.
What we do then is take a nice big smell
of the coffee as it rises to the top.
That's another type of
aroma, it's the wet aroma.
After that, we break the
crust and, again we smell.
As we break the floating
coffee on the top,
it releases yet another
series of sensations
that we like the smell about the coffees.
We usually cup the same coffee twice
just to make sure any inconsistencies are
sort of ironed out
between the two tasters.
After that, we scrape off
what floats to the top
which is usually bitter caffeine
and wait for it to cool
down up to 15 minutes
before we start tasting.
For me it's really hard to
taste coffee when it's hot.
I just kind of taste hot,
and so I like to wait for it to cool down.
I recommend doing that
with any coffee you try.
You can get a little more
sweetness and nuance out of it.
Alright let's start.
Eric, welcome to my cupping class.
- Thanks.
- It's not a class it's,
Hi!
- I feel like you're a great
teacher though this is a class.
- Thank you.
- I don't know that much about coffee
and I really need it right now 'cause
it's the end of the day and I'm so tired.
- Perfect, perfect.
So what we're going to do is
we're going to do a cupping
and all I want you to do is just tell me
what you smell and taste.
- Okay
- We're doing three different coffees
so this one is a light roast
this one is a medium and
this one is pretty dark.
So through the magic of video editing
I've now ground my coffee
(Eric laughs)
and we went for a slightly more course
than normal for Bruce.
We used 11 grams per cup
and we're just going to
fill it up to the top
again before we start
let's do some dry smell.
- Okay.
- So we'll always start
right here down to the dark.
So light to dark and
definitely smell both cups.
- Oh
- yeah go for it
- Both Cups?
- Mhm.
Give it a little tap too.
That might help like lift the, yeah.
Professional already.
- And I'm supposed to smell the difference
between these two?
- No, you're going to
smell just an average.
It helps mitigate inconsistency.
- Oh wow that's smart.
It actually smells like Korean
Fermented Soybean, Doenjang.
It's kind of like this funky misoy smell.
- I knew exactly what he's talking about.
- You know what I'm talking about?
Oh yeah!
(Matthew laughs)
I always forget he's Korean.
(both laughing)
- Yeah, I know exactly
what you're talking about,
I get sweet, savory, umami, I
get a little bit of vibrancy,
you know, something bright in there.
I won't ascribe a fruit to it,
because we all taste fruits differently,
but it tends to be a little bit brighter.
- [Eric] It's savory, it's funky.
- Lets do this one, I'll
switch with you in just a sec.
(tapping glasses)
- Hm mm
(tapping glasses)
- This is like instant good mood.
(laughing)
- Same.
I kind of honestly get a little nuttiness.
Sweet fragrance, but not
necessarily like a fruity or sweet,
like a more of more a
savory note of kind of
for me comes out a bit
more for me on this roast.
- Interesting. This one's more dirt
like to me like chocholatey .
- Yeah. Yeah. Earthy.
- Earthy. Ha. Earthy
because this ones reminds
me of like a savory funkiness .
- Yeah
- This one has lost that. More mild maybe.
- [Matthew] Okay lets do the dark.
(tapping glasses)
- Oh.
- Oh.
- Yeah.
- That's fun.
- This is like reminds me of
like my first coffee memories.
Ya know my grandma pouring
instant coffee into a cup.
- Folgers.
- Yeah.
I would smell just the instant coffee
I wouldn't even drink it.
It just smelled so good and rich.
- [Eric] Oh, I was afraid,
this one reminds me more of
kind of funky misoy smell.
I was afraid I would not be able to
smell any of these because,--
- Yeah, that has like a really rich
rich developed flavor on it.
Much more developed
than I'd say these two.
- [Matthew] So now we'll
do the exact same thing
starting this way we'll smell the coffees
so go, just put your, yeah.
- [Eric] It smells like,
when you good to a sauna
all the saunas that you
go to and the steam room
what's that wood that's
burning in the corner.
- I don't know it kind of varies from.
- You know that things
smell really particular.
- Yeah.
- I get--
- Oh wait it smells like that.
- Yeah.
- I need to find out what that wood is
- Yeah
- If someone knows what that is
comment,
- (laughs)Comment.
- Or you will do an air
bubble right here. Yeah.
Oh sorry did you want to move on?
- Yeah, lets move on.
- [Eric] Oh, this is
definitely more chocolatey.
- Mm hmm.
- Which I think I said,
Right
- Yeah.
This is so fun.
Am I getting caffeine by sniffing it?
No.
- (laughing)I hooked that up.
- I want to hear your
thoughts on this one.
- Mm hmm, Okay.
I felt this way when I sniffing them dry.
This reminds me of this one.
- Interesting. Why?
- I don't Know.
This smells like savory.
This one's definitely like chocolatey.
This one was also savory, but--
(laughing)I put my nose in there
(phone beeps)
- Alright, well, with that,
we're going to break the crust.
(music)
- [Matthew] This one's
already pretty much broken.
We're gonna do, you're
gonna grab one spoon,
and me the other,
and we're gonna do, is we're going to do,
one down, push and a circle
around the rim. Okay,
- Why are you pushing it?
- Because we're trying to
submerge it, and as we're doing
it, it's going to release
a new set of smells.
- Okay.
- So ready.
So I'll show you on this one.
You can start on that one
even though there's not much there.
- Okay.
- So you go like this, this.
(music)
After that, dip,
dry, and again.
- What an art.
- So I'll do actually, I'll do one set,
and you did the other
set. How does that sound.
- Okay.
(music)
- Alright, your turn.
- Wow.
(music)
- [Matthew] Yeah, get real close.
You kind of smell how it's changing.
(music)
- I forgot to breathe.
(all laughing)
- You doing great. You are doing great.
(music)
- This one was fun for me.
- Alright.
- Yeah.
(music)
- Wow that is different.
- Yeah.
And then the last one
that's already kind of,
just give it a stir I guess.
- Yeah, okay.
Wow.
- Mm hmm.
- Oh my God, this one
has like a just nutty it.
I can't wait to taste
this one. It's so weird,
- Mm hmm.
- but in a great way.
Oh, it's like chestnuts roasting.
- Perfect. I'm gonna grab
this from you real quick.
So now we're going to do the
last part before we wait,
called skimming, where I
just take all the foam off.
- [Eric] Is there a reason.
- [Matthew] Yep, that
is basically caffeine,
and bitter flavors, and
we're trying to not have that
in our cups anymore.
Oops. What was some comparisons here,
from the first to the second?
- I think, was able to smell
all three of them more,
more clearly, because it wasn't so strong.
- Yeah.
But this one totally changed flavor, like,
is the one that I said
smelled like the sauna.
- Yeah.
- So this one smelled like,
I just kept thinking about,
you know, I went from like
Doenjang Korean soybean,
and then I went to sauna
woods whatever that is,
and then a third time it
smelled like roasted chestnuts,
but all three times there
was, like this deep,
wood sea like.
- Yeah,
- Yeah, savory flavor.
- Yeah, I find that during from for me,
like during this process
of breaking the crust,
and kind of having it, I
get a very nice picture
of what I want to taste
for when I make the coffee.
So with all these smells, I
kind of just sort of construct
what the potential beverage is.
So cupping is often times
used to great coffees.
It's used to taste, let's
say you get a coffee
from Ethiopia, and you're
developing multiple roast profiles
for it.
They will then compare every
roast profile with each bean,
like two, or three cups, and
then comparing and contrasting,
what develops the most
of the natural sugars,
and terroir really kind of shine through.
They use it for blending components.
So like if you want to
make a blend, they'll cup
and taste every components.
Really, this is kind
of instrumental in sort
of deciphering the nuances and differences
between the coffee amongst
coffee professionals
- Do you cup when you're
when you've just bought
a couple new bags?
- Never.
- By then you've already,
you already know.
- No, I, by the time I'm
when I buy a bag of coffee,
I don't cup, because,
one, it needs to be
pretty fresh off roast.
So whatever I end up buying on
the shelf is usually already
about a week old .
It doesn't make me enjoy the coffee.
It helps me analyze what I'm
tasting, like the differences,
but it doesn't help me appreciate,
what the farmers have cultivated,
and what the roasters have developed.
It was in those moments,
of going to cuppings,
and just coffee tastings
with other coffee enthusiasts
that, I began to understand that,
I can get a little bit
more out of my coffee aside
from just acidity.
Over the course of these
past five to six years
of tasting different coffees,
I'm finding that, that deep sweetness,
that umami, the Doenjang.(laughs)
Is kind of what makes coffee delicious.
It's not necessarily
the acidity that does,
it makes the acidity makes it fun for me.
- Yeah,
- The savoriness makes me want more.
That's what makes me keep coming back.
Like I want that, that
comfort in the morning.
You know,
- I love that.
I you ever had that coffee at ---
- -----where are they again?
- It's like right up the street.
Probably like we don't
want to include this,
but I hate their coffee so much.
(Matthew laughs)
It's unfortunate. It's
like that's not your style.
You know if you're a
coffee shop, and you have
these espresso drinks,
and you only use one bean,
but if that bean is not your bean,
as a customer, like, how
does that make, I don't know,
it doesn't make sense to me.
It's like, some coffee
shops only sell one bean,
because teaching baristas
how to taste for sweetness,
can take very,
like a very, very long time.
- Why do you say sweetness specifically?
Because that's like the
goal, or something, or--
- Yeah.
- Okay.
So, have you've had a coffee
that tastes really sour?
- Yeah.
So those are,---
- This one are delicious.
- Okay, exactly. Are you talking about---?
- Yeah.(laughs)
- So, the reason why that happens is,
because with lighter roasted
coffees, they don't develop
as much umami during
the Maillard reaction,
when they're roasting. Right.
So you get a little bit less
of that savory sweetness.
That's that sweetness
that I'm talking about?
It's in there. It's definitely there.
It's just more subtle.
- Okay.
What's fun for me as a, like
someone who loves coffee,
is tasting the acidity, and so a lot
of coffee professionals, like
I think, this could be into,
honestly an argument with some
people, but like, they love
to exemplify that coffees,
uniqueness through its acidity,
- [Eric] Right.
- Whereas I think it's
much better to drink,
when it's more controlled,
it's more nuance,
and you bring out the
coffee's natural sweetness.
- It's not blasting you in the face.
- Yeah, yeah.
- I agree with that.
(music)
- We're waiting for it to cool down.
We've been waiting for
about, I'd say, you know,
nine-10 minutes.
I'm going to give a slurp if
it's still a little too high.
We're going to wait longer.
- Okay.
- So this is a spitting part.
But as you can imagine, coffee
professionals would have,
like, I don't know, 50
different cups on the plate,
and so, if you're trying
all that you're gonna shake.
- [Eric] Okay.
- So that's why they spit,
- right.
- but you don't have to spit,
because you were telling me,
you need coffee, and what you
do is just get a little bit
(sucking and spitting)
- I kind of like wine.
- Just really, you want
it to coat the entirety
of your palate, so that's
the roof of your mouth,
under your tongue, like
we're in a Roman shop.
Just slurp away. It's great.
(sucking)
Oh, yeah, coffee.(whispers)Coffee, coffee.
(sucking and spitting)
- I really want to drink
it.(laughs)I drank it.
- Drink it. Yeah, just drink.
- It's really good.
- Yeah, yeah.
- This one's so interesting. I love it.
(sucking and spitting)
- Can you do it one more
time, so I can be sure.
- Yeah.
(sucking and spitting)
(all laughing)
It's okay. It's okay.
I did that every time.
- I can't do this with wine either.
Every time they pour my wine
at a restaurant, and like,
have a taste, and then I
like,(sucking)oh, it tastes great.
(Matthew laughing)
- [Matthew] You're just like,
I don't want to do.(sucking)
- I wanna do it again.
- (coughs) Okay,
- Oh yeah.
Mm hmm. Mm hmm(sucking)
- This one smells like hot
chocolate. It's like,(sucking)
how do you not give it back to
your throat when you do that?
- I have done it a lot.
I also kind of like, tilt my
head forward a little bit.
So it's spring against the
back of my throat as much
as it's just sort of more
towards the roof of the mouth,
but---
(Eric sucking)
- I like the flavor of that one.
I think that's the one that
I would normally drink,
and buy actually it's like,--
- (sucking)Right in that middle.
- Maybe I'm not a coffee
drinker who's looking for,
you know, the acidic
complexity of that kind,
but, yeah, so this is
what I like to drink, but,
- Yeah,
- I like that, you say
that it's okay to like,
the simpler one, or.
But you wouldn't, would you
call this simpler than that?
- Not necessarily,
- Yeah.
- but I know exactly what you mean.
I think there's this connotation,
or assumption really,
that darker roast
coffees are less refined,
but traditional American coffees have
always been pretty dark.
Just because it's darker
doesn't mean it's bad.
I also prefer the central one often times.
(sucking)
- Hmm, that one is interesting.
I mean, this isn't the best way possible,
but this one reminds me
of gas station coffee.
(laughing)
You know, it's like,
it's intense.
- What I like actually
about gas station coffees,
I know exactly what I'm getting.
It's not a surprise.
When I order a single word and coffee
from like specialty shops,
- Yeah.
- I don't know what the
baristas interpretation of like,
the best extraction from that
coffee is going to look like.
- Yeah.
Gas station coffee, you know,
the big chains, they're great,
because I don't have
to guess my experience.
It's always going to be the same.
What makes the single origin fun,
is trying to embrace this interpretation,
and then taking it home and trying my own,
- Yeah.
- and just tinkering with it, you know,
it's, it's like the experimentation,
and that's ultimately like,
my great point here is,
these coffees are all different.
They all have different roasts,
but we really, no matter
how much we could talk about it,
at the end of the day, we
wouldn't know how to describe it
unless we try it.
- Yeah,
- You know, I think there are
so many questions we can ask
about what makes coffee
different from one coffee
to the other, and to
answer that, is truly like,
a personal experience for
me, that can be shared,
that can be connected with other people,
but it has to be done
by trying the coffees,
Roasters, like I had
mentioned kind of like,
roast the same coffee at
different like, roast profiles,
and so maybe they start at,
you know, 400+ Fahrenheit,
and then it drops down when
they put the cold coffee in,
and then they ramp it
up at a certain rate.
Most roasters, are trying
to bring out the like,
the best flavor of like,
both highlighting the beans natural,
like terroir development in on the farm,
as well as making sure to bring out
just a touch more sweetness
here, or a little less
over there.
It's like a truly an unfinished product,
- Yeah.
even at home, you know, it's
still got that last step
of you, me, friends,
coffee shops, you know.
- [Eric] it's so poetic. I love that.
This is so much fun. Thank you.
- Yeah.
I'm like,
- I'm glad you could go have some coffee.
- I like, yeah, yeah.(laughing)
I was like I, gonna empty this cup.
- So, if I'm buying these
different kinds of grounds,
do you, do you grind them up differently?
And do you do them differently?
- I tend to grind based off of how I brew.
So with immersion style brewing,
like a French press, right.
For example, I would do a
little bit of a coarser grind.
A little finer than what
we've cuped for sure,
but I do a little coarser,
and then if we're doing pour
over, just a hair finer,
just a hair not too much.
I don't think a coffee tastes better
through a different brew
method from one to the other.
Now, that being said, I may
change my mind on what I prefer
over time.
So for example, let's take this coffee.
It's bright, it's a coffee from Columbia.
It has a higher elevation,
so the beans are a little bit
denser, has a lot more sugar,
but it's a light roast, and
so if I were to put this
through a pour over and possibly achemics,
it filters out oils that
might change the texture
of the coffee. So then I'll
change to French press,
which doesn't filter oils out
and makes what was originally,
a pretty acidic coffee into
a smoother bodied coffee.
- Oh, because the oils were even flavors.
- Yeah.
For darker roasted coffees,
I tend to let pour overs,
because it retains some of the oils,
obviously not all of them,
but it comes out with
a slightly cleaner cup
than French press, and so
it has a little bit more
of a balanced flavor.
Does that make sense?
- Yeah.
And then with like the darkest roasts,
I kind of just have fun with it.
Condensed milk, sugar, honey,
- Right.
- you know,
I've even tried salt, because why not?
And then like kind of made it sweeter.
- Yeah.
I'm not recommending it, but
you know, have fun with it.
- I have a brother who is
as interested in coffee
as you are, and he sends me really fancy,
or fancy-like single origin stuff.
Now he starts to send me more
like these kinds of things
that I like the deeper noted ones,
but you know, when when my
brothers coffee runs out,
I go out and buy the ground
hazelnut, Dunkin Donuts coffee.
That's like, but I like
to like change it up.
But I do you think like,
what I actually want to do
after this is go to a cupping,
because I just learned so much,
and this was so fun. It was like so fun.
- Right.
Actually, you should do it for the office.
- Maybe.
- Like, so many people would love this.
- Okay.
- Maybe should do for that at(whispers)
(laughs)
So let's just go ahead of this,
and Gabrielle, our producer.
- So thank you so much for
joining me, and talking
about coffee.
We've talked a lot, and I'm
very excited, because at the end
of the day, what I hope you
and I kind of experienced
together by having coffees and a variety
of coffees together, is that
although we taste differently,
we would have never
known, if we hadn't shared
our experiences.
So definitely keep trying
new coffees, go out there,
try it differently.
Have fun with it. Take your friend Eric.
It's going to be a good time.
If you want to see more
videos, hit the like button,
write a comment.
Tell me more of what you guys want.
We go through those comments,
you know, will answer them
as best as we can,
and thanks for watching guys.
Have a great day.
(music)
