This evening I had a lot of fun presenting at the London Gastronomy Seminars. The topic was flavour in wine and coffee, and I was up after Jamie Goode, which is a hard act to follow! Our topic was “Flavour – from plant to cup”
Jamie’s presentation was full of information and topics that could have become a presentation in their own right. Talking to him before, and thinking about what he said during, I suspect I am going to get sucked into flavour perception all over again. Not so much the mechanics of taste reception and gustation – but more what our brains choose to do with this information. Perception rather than detection.
I should also add that the wine Jamie used for his talk was fascinating. The best description I could have was it was like tasting a natural process, having only drunk washed coffees. Jamie’s rather more eloquent notes on it can be found here.
I really do enjoy giving talks and a room full of 150+ people certainly delivers a little adrenaline rush. (I shall make no secret of the fact that I would kill to talk at TED one day, so thoroughly jealous of Intelligentsia being involved this year! If you need a barista at all…..) That said – suddenly having to brew 16+ litres of coffee with a single filter brewer was a little challenging!
I talked a bit about coffee’s journey, dividing the narrative into four stages: creation (growing)/processing/roasting/brewing. I then served two coffees and tried to relate the flavours in the cup back through those four stages. The Q&A from the audience at the end was inevitably my favourite bit, the range of questions was wonderful. Unfortunately they were unable to film tonight’s event, and I don’t think putting the slides up would be very interesting.
I think the London Gastronomy Seminars are going to continue to grow and grow – there already seems to be a community forming of diverse and interesting people with a shared passion. I look forward to the next one, and hopefully I’ll see you there!
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4 Comments
great post!!!
Hi james my name is Iuri I´m from Brasil, how are you? Your blog is fantastic would be better with more photos …
Bye
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Sounds like you had a blast up there. If you like the adrenalin rush talking in front of 150+ people you will be intoxicated the moment you step on stage to speak at a TED type even. Either that or you’ll throw-up before and then faint while on stage. ;0)
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Really enjoyde the talk. Both good and informative and entertaining. You can be quite funny too!!
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I’d be happy to brew coffee for you next time you need a brew bitch!
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by James Hoffmann, Bea's of Bloomsbury. Bea's of Bloomsbury said: RT @jimseven: Blog post: Tonight's London Gastronomy Seminar http://bit.ly/6rgQs3 [...]
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