happy you guys sticked the right names on it. this gives cupping a more serious reputation to the wider public.

good luck in Tokyo.

Rob.
Antwerp Barista

The guy from MOZZO was great too eh? He managed to combine fairtrade, organic, Colombian and Arabica in to one sentence, which he summarised as ‘quality’, yet actual coffee quality is the one thing they seem to have no measure of or regard for!

It’s a shame you couldn’t get a CoE on the table… the dizzy tart may have begun to understand what coffee is actually about.

They always seem to be fuelled by a specific importer’s / roasters’ push to get a media source to promote their offerings.

I haven’t outright turned them all down though – I have a “show your balls” test of sorts in response. If I find out that there’s a tasting evaluation for, say, a range of Fair Trade coffees from roaster XYZ, I say I’d love to participate, but only if you’re willing to put up coffee so and so (usually an award winner, like CoE, or in the case of FT, which was usually mostly Africans back in the day), some standout Ethiopian or Kenyan I was aware of at the time. I’d argue that in a cupping evaluation, it’s important to have a mix on the table, and perhaps have one coffee that the specialty industry considers a thoroughbred.

In pretty much every case where I’ve suggested it, two things have happened. Either its turned down outright by the show’s producer / director / host (rare – usually they like the idea), or it’s initially accepted, but then rejected later on when the article / show’s main contributor / backer / pusher gets wind of the idea, and staunchly rejects it.

“Hmm.. That one tastes a little odd to me”, great.