Which is, for a Seattleite, a lot like peeing in your own bathtub.When I review a restaurant I don’t like, I don’t ever have to go back there again. But for today’s feature, I spent a lot of time talking with the staff of my three favorite coffee roasters — Victrola, Stumptown, and Zoka — and drinking their coffees. And then I questioned what the hell they were doing. I buy their coffees for three reasons: 1. The lighter roast (no taste of creosote or ash). 2. Their ethics — the fact that they pay much higher than commodity prices to their farmers. 3. The freshness of the beans, which I personally believe plays a more significant role in why their coffees taste better than Starbucks or Tully’s than the coffee’s cupping score at source. But when I went to my first cupping months ago, I discovered something I’ve never encountered in the food world. I’ve had my palate educated on the subtle flavor qualities of dozens of products. I’ve just never been sold a product based on a sensory experience that the educated consumer couldn’t actually have at home. Luckily, whether or not you can catch notes of linden or candied grapefruit peel from your Colombian bourbon, the product’s still fantastic. It’s interesting to know that coffee pros can taste all these subtle aromas, and I think anyone who wants to geek out and attend cupping after cupping could eventually do the same…when they’re tasting coffees around the cupping table. I just wish that my favorite roasters would sell customers an experience they could have — say, “you might catch a whiff of berries in the steam.” And, after cupping dozens of single-estate coffees, my house coffee is the same as before I started writing about the topic: Victrola’s Empire Blend. That is, if they’ll sell it to me.