I've tested this theory with more than a dozen bags of coffee over the past three months. For example, one of the coffees whose description most closely matched my experience of it was Zoka's Kenya Kiandu AA, which I cupped following Lingle's instructions and then brewed several different ways. Here's Zoka's Web blurb:
"This central Kenyan coffee's light roast offers a complex and intriguing blend of macadamia nut and spice mixed with candied citrus flavors. Beautiful low tones of lemon, grapefruit, plum, currant and chocolate are found within this amazing cup."
![Victrola’s Perry Hook [left] and Joe Anthony competing in the Olympics of the nose.](http://media.seattleweekly.com/seattle-s-new-way-to-fetishize-coffee.2801997.40.jpg)
Steven Miller
Victrola’s Perry Hook [left] and Joe Anthony competing in the Olympics of the nose.
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Tasted at the viscosity of tea via fast, airy slurps, the coffee did give off aromas of buttery nuts, spice, and candied citrus. I then brewed the coffee in both a press pot and a low-tech Melitta filter, per Stumptown and Zoka's precise directions regarding grind, water temperature, amount, and timing. The subtle acidity in the Kiandu AA, which came off as delicate citrus in the cupping, emerged as a high-pitched tartness that clung to the roof of my mouth, and all hint of the nutty, buttery, caramelly aromas that even I had faintly detected were compressed and flattened, overrun by the chocolate-roasty notes of...well, coffee.
Great coffee, even. But not nearly as complex as wine.
Even if you find that you have the nose of a Cup of Excellence judge, when you make a cup of coffee at home you're not likely to taste all the aromas described on the card that comes in your packet. Prefer lattes? Stir in milk or sugar? You're doing even more to ruin the effect.
Drunk hot, thick, and unadulturated, early enough in the morning that I can barely remember my name, the single-origin coffees I've been making at home occasionally give off a fleeting fruity or floral note—a little apricot there, some blueberry there. In that regard, the cuppings and tasting notes may be working, at least on me. Victrola's Hook says that's what they're for. "When I cup with people who are more experienced than I am, I find it helpful to hear what they notice," he says. "Talking about things you taste is very difficult, and I guess I'm just trying to help people get the nuance out of the coffee."
The third-wave roasters seem to be doing a fantastic job at locating small lots of good coffee, helping farmers improve their crop, and roasting their beans in such a way that the pros can taste layers of exotic scent. But they're doing us all a disservice by selling customers a taste experience they can't have. If the third wave is committed to treating coffee like wine, what roasters have yet to do is change the way we drink coffee. Until the day when we all sit around cafes drinking tea-like infusions of coffee in high-decibel slurps, the poetry of the tasting note is just marketing-speak.
In a glancing comment, Victrola's assistant roaster, in fact, offered me the most honest rationale for all the hyperbole: the sense that customers should appreciate every ounce of care the industry puts into its wares. "We know that all this work is done all the way up the chain," says Joe Anthony, "from how the coffee's picked at origin to how it's milled and shipped to how we roast it here. It's a super-complicated chain. And still the average person has a drip machine that brews the coffee using too-cold water, and then lets it sit on the burner."
jkauffman@seattleweekly.com
