More Exciting Facts about Coffee...

Although I am far from being a caffeine addict, it’s definitely my favorite morning beverage. Not only is it adulting at its finest, it’s also as much an art form as my other favorite adult beverage – wine.

A couple weeks ago my husband and I watched a documentary about the annual Barista Competition (yes, that really is a thing, who knew?) that determines who goes on to compete in the international version (which is a whole other documentary).

In the competition, contestants get 15 minutes in which to make the judges three different coffee drinks (espresso, cappuccino, and a signature drink) while simultaneously explaining what’s so special about them, like what the judges should smell or taste. I was fascinated by the idea of a signature drink they have to come up with.

My favorite involved a chemistry set that distilled the bitterness out of coffee so when served it was clear and had a whole different flavor. My husband, who has a BS in Chemistry wasn’t as awed by this as I was, since apparently the hardest part is just connecting all those tubes and bottles, which was the downfall for Truman Severson when the bits and pieces didn’t want to cooperate. I heard he retired (from competing) after that competition. One of the other contestants made his own ice cream for the Affogato he served. Sometimes the contestants get quite exotic as you can see.

By the way, Affogato is definitely my favorite summer beverage dessert. My version is to brew a cup of Hot Buttered Rum flavored coffee and pour it over a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It can be served either hot or cold and goes down a treat. It couldn’t be simpler and tastes quite lovely. 

A few days after we saw the documentary I attended a Lunch ‘n Learn (online) one afternoon that was hosted by Trish Rothgeb from Wrecking Ball Coffee in SF, USA. By the way, San Fran is a great town for coffee, though I barely scratched the surface when I was there with my uncle (who lives in one of the outer suburbs) since he doesn’t go in for flavored coffee like I do (no Frappuccinos for me though). However, we did pop into a coffee shop near a post office where I tried an interesting rose-water flavored latte made with Illy coffee. My uncle (a devoted fan of Peets) declined my offer to try a sip.

Anyway, I digress, Trish is very passionate about coffee and that definitely came through in her presentation. It was, hands down, the best Lunch ‘n Learn presentation I’ve ever attended that didn’t make me mind the long afternoon afterwards.

Like many of us, she didn’t end up pursuing what she studied in college, which was art. She said she gravitated to coffee, because coffee never gets boring.

She showed us a picture of the 5’5” coffee plant she had growing in the corner of her living room. She said a friend had given it to her seven years ago and it was finally mature enough to be producing fruit, so she decided to roast the beans (or cherries as they’re called in the coffee business) to make her own (cup of) coffee. If I thought a coffee plant could survive my cat and an Ohio winter, I would totally be on board with that idea. Of course you also have to be quite patient as you wait years and years for it to mature. She told us it wouldn’t take that long in the coffee growing regions of the world, only about three to five years on average.

She educated us on the various coffee-growing countries and said coffee grows particularly well in the regions near the equator, not surprising. We learned which countries’ coffees rank higher (they get entered in various competitions) and how they differ from country to country.

I also learned countries like Costa Rica (Panama, Belize, and even Hawaii) have been damaged by so much tourism that the size of their coffee fields has shrunk. However, agritourism is still encouraged.

Trish showed us a photo of some of her students practicing cupping in a room lit only by a red light. She explained red helps disguise the colors of the coffee that the students are learning to differentiate by taste rather than by sight. I had seen cupping done in barista documentaries, but had never seen it done under a red light, so that was an interesting teaching/learning technique.

Cupping is the process of slurping coffee so it reaches all the areas of your palate in order to get the fullest taste of a sample of coffee. I had wondered whether the coffee was still hot while you did that, but my husband reminded me coffee cools down rather quickly when poured into a small cup, so it definitely wouldn’t burn you doing that.

I learned a little bit of technical jargon like Short or Long, which refers to the amount of water in a coffee. Trish showed us various charts we could use to learn about all the subtleties of coffee, which helps you learn and improve your enjoyment of coffee.

Someone asked how it is that coffee beans are supposed to cleanse your palate, so-to-speak when sniffing lots of aromatic items, like candles, for instance.* She said the coffee beans bring every other smell to your nose acting as a cleanser. Trish said she was skeptical of this and suggested instead smelling the back of your hand, which has the same effect since you can’t smell your own body scent.

*I once worked at Yankee Candle and sometimes people would ask for the small jar of coffee beans we kept behind the counter for such situations.

This weekend my experiment with coffee was to make a Bulletproof coffee, which was one of the recipes I received during my 10 day Sugar Detox I recently did through work.

I was warned that it might be an acquired taste being that it tastes buttery and all, and it most definitely did, but I was pleasantly surprised and appreciated it for the novel value if nothing else. I think next time I would maybe add a little less (1 TBSP) butter and perhaps a tiny bit of something else that's creamy (like milk or yogurt) with a dash of cinnamon on top.