Comments on: Video 7 – News, thank yous and labels

By: Gunnar Aurdal

Gunnar Aurdal — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 08:23:53 +0000

I’ve visited Tim Wendelboe’s place in Oslo, and he really makes fantastic coffee. I espescially remember a cup of coffee that smelled and tasted of lovely black currant. That’s my best cup of coffee ever! I’m glad to see that you like it too. :)

By: triptogenetica

triptogenetica — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:45:45 +0000

Hope the tasting went well!

Just a quick note – rather than asking people to match, e.g. coffee 1 to label 3, it would be more usual to number the coffees and letter the labels. (Or the other way around, it doesn’t matter). Assuming the labels are truly randomly numbered, there’d be a strong impulse NOT to put coffee 1 with label 1, coffee 2 with label 2 etc – even if this is the truth!

By: SlowRain

SlowRain — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:35:06 +0000

I think most people who are new to the world of specialty coffee find the labels almost useless. I know I did. The current way of labeling is not geared towards informing newcomers. I found a good coffee shop and pestered them until I understood how they labeled their coffees. I didn’t taste chocolate or nuttiness, but I know that I liked what was labeled as such, and I avoided anything labeled as ‘citrusy’, ‘acidy’, or ‘bright’. Basically, I had to find a work-around that was useful for me to understand this method of labeling. I think a more practical system describing the relative sweetness, acidity, sourness, etc. would be more useful for beginners–it’s just not sexy.

By: Bradley

Bradley — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:40:11 +0000

If i can sneak out of work for an hour, i’ll be there!

By: Francis Percival

Francis Percival — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:18:02 +0000

We will definitely be there to taste on Friday afternoon. We will try and bring along some other people who are experienced tasters of things other than coffee so (hopefully) you get a middle ground between the complete novice and an industry-trained palate…

By: Jules

Jules — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:05:09 +0000

The Breville scales look very interesting. Do let us know what they’re like once you’ve had a good play.

By: Paul D

Paul D — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:47:01 +0000

Thanks Tim and James for clarifying!

By: Poul Mark

Poul Mark — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:10:22 +0000

Cool experiment James, we might give it a go here next week. Having said that, I just hosted a Coffee 101 class last week, and did a tasting of five coffees with complete newbies in terms of tasting. They had a very difficult time putting any descriptor to the coffees tasted, other than it tastes like “coffee”. I really do think that the problem lies somewhere in the middle. On one level, our descriptors are probably a bit fanciful at times, I remember a head judge at an event describing a coffee as clotted cream and strawberries on a fresh scone. This type of language, I think, is not useful in the slightest. The other side is that according to the experts, we all are exceedingly capable of perceiving aroma, but woefully adequate at recognizing those aromas. And the recognition only comes with practice and repetition. Its the wine guy drinking 1000 cabs to get the profile down, or you and Anette tasting 100′s of El Salvador coffees to get the profile into recognizable descriptors. So at the end of the day, the experiment has to be crafted in terms of its purpose. Are we trying to communicate to an untrained palate, in a way that is accessible? Or are we concerned about our accuracy in describing the coffee we sell. The results I think, will be wildly different depending on which type of person does the experiment.

By: navier stokes

navier stokes — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:53:13 +0000

Great idea – it’s kind of a different take on a blind tasting!! I may pop over with a mate if I’m not busy…. you do mean Friday 17th right, not 16th?

By: dsc

dsc — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:49:54 +0000

Those sound like some cool prizes. Will need to look into how to enter.