The three of us were sitting at a round table, seven small cardboard cups positioned around the edge of the table. All was quiet, except the slurping. This slurping was different than the ramen noodle slurp. Different than the slurp from a milkshake. This slurp sounded like a sharp inhale, a whistle. My two companions were slurping a spoon full of coffee. I was at Batdorf & Bronson's facility in West Midtown with Mike Ferguson (Business Development Director) and Brad Lawrence (Roaster and Production Manager), learning the process of coffee cupping; a method of tasting coffee to determine flavor. Fresh beans are ground and divvied into cups, and hot water is then poured over the grounds to create a concentrated cup of coffee. Cupping plays two roles within the industry: it is used by green coffee buyers to evaluate a coffee and decide whether or not they want to purchase, and it is used as quality control to evaluate our roasting.
"One unique thing about Batdorf & Bronson is we also have a roaster in Olympia, Washington," Ferguson told me. "We send them samples of our roast and they send us their samples and once a week the roasting teams on both coasts cup together over Skype. This is to ensure that each bag of coffee, whether Dancing Goats blend or Vesuvia blend, is the same."
A formal cupping environment is quiet. Participants taste through the first round of coffee without making comments, that way it allows people to concentrate on the flavors they are tasting without the power of suggestion. It was easy for me to stay quiet. I wasn’t really sure how Ferguson and Lawrence were coming up with some of their descriptions.
Brazil: "Really nutty, almost buttery." (Lawrence) Ethiopia's Yirgacheffe: "I like clean, sparkling acidity. These flavors come from a 30 day (Lawrence) Sulawesi Toraja: "This one is dark and pineapple-y. Towards the middle it goes through to an element of potting soil, then a bit of herbaceous green pepper." (Ferguson) French Roast: "I see this as comfort food. It sits in your belly, makes you feel full. It's a nice sweet, dark chocolate thing." (Ferguson)
“I never notice bad beans in a full pot, which is why we use such small portions in cupping,” Lawrence told me. “It distills the flavor of the coffee into a concentrated cup, but it doesn’t taste like what you would drink in a full cup. It really does make you aware of defects.”
View the photo gallery tour of Batdorf & Bronson's Atlanta roasting facility here.
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