Coffee Talk
In the beginning...
I am drinking a Costa Rican coffee I roasted six days ago and, as it is called "Genesis", Biblical themes are on my mind. The coffee to be precise is Loudes de Naranjo - Genesis. I roasted it to City Plus and had an excellent cup Tuesday morning. I screwed it up Thursday morning by not dumping my pre-heat water from my thermos so it tasted good, but dilute. This morning I was thinking either it is mostly over (as in, no longer super fresh) the initial sweetness I found or, since I changed the grind a bit, I am getting less extraction of the "sweeter" compounds. But the mind boggling thing about taste is how complex it is and how difficult it is to put into words. Now living near wine country I have had plenty of exposure to the wine vernacular and many people now speak Wine. As a non-drinker, I have no pretensions to understanding Wine-speak, but Coffee is something I would like to speak. Though to let you in on the heart of my difficulty, let me share the tasting notes from Sweet Maria's (my green coffee purveyor) on this Genesis.
"The dry fragrance is intensely sweet, with malt syrup, praline, dark honey, and raisiny fruits. Adding the hot water, the wet aromatics have interesting savory sweet qualities, dark brown bread in the oven, cooked berry and more raisin fruits (think pie). It's a coffee I just want to sit and smell for as long as possible - these are highly attractive aromatics! The cup is vividly bright, with strong honey-lemonade flavors, red berry, toasted nut, and praline. It's quite sweet, but not in the typical wet-process Costa Rica way. The body is dense, thick. It definitely reveals itself as a true "honey coffee," a "miel" or pulp natural process. In that respect, the flavors are slightly more rustic, and the opaque body more pronounced, and a distinct "roundness" to the mouthfeel." (http://www.sweetmarias.com/printable_review.php?id=CostaRicaLourdesdeNaranjoGenesisJuly2009)
In a book about wine tasting by an industry outsider, I learned the word 'organoleptic', which is the naming of the sensory qualities of a particular substance. So correlating these organoleptic descriptors with what is actually in the cup becomes the challenge. Relating this to my coffee here, I got no "honey-lemonade", no "praline". I can make the leap to "red berry" as I taste a sort of sweet, astringency that I label "cough syrup" - the red kind. Was that cherry? But this process is like hallucinating. And then it is like sitting in your hallucinations long enough to describe them vividly. And then to "listen" to enough other hallucinations that you learn your "cough syrup" is everyone else's "vividly bright" "red berry". Is this healthy?
My tongue has a light buzz from the cup I finished fifteen minutes ago with a hazy sensation in the rest of my mouth. Haziness, to me, is a leftover sensation, like the sensation moments after fingers stoke the skin. The hazy sensation is full in the way that it encompasses the whole mouth and multiple sensory paths; it is not sweet or sour, or tart, though it might edge toward bitter - it is well rounded. One of the joys of coffee may be that the flavor stays with you so long. I have recalled a cup consumed first thing in the morning many hours later, thinking back to its loveliness, sweetness, or clarity.
But in Coffee, like in Wine, certain specific assignations are given to certain labels. And I am not sure how to figure these out. In the meantime, I will keep on tasting and see if my "cough syrups" and "good" can progress to "praline", "honey-lemonade" and maybe even "lead-pencil shavings" and "leather".
Los Manantiales farm at sunset, where the Genesis lot is milled.
I am drinking a Costa Rican coffee I roasted six days ago and, as it is called "Genesis", Biblical themes are on my mind. The coffee to be precise is Loudes de Naranjo - Genesis. I roasted it to City Plus and had an excellent cup Tuesday morning. I screwed it up Thursday morning by not dumping my pre-heat water from my thermos so it tasted good, but dilute. This morning I was thinking either it is mostly over (as in, no longer super fresh) the initial sweetness I found or, since I changed the grind a bit, I am getting less extraction of the "sweeter" compounds. But the mind boggling thing about taste is how complex it is and how difficult it is to put into words. Now living near wine country I have had plenty of exposure to the wine vernacular and many people now speak Wine. As a non-drinker, I have no pretensions to understanding Wine-speak, but Coffee is something I would like to speak. Though to let you in on the heart of my difficulty, let me share the tasting notes from Sweet Maria's (my green coffee purveyor) on this Genesis.
"The dry fragrance is intensely sweet, with malt syrup, praline, dark honey, and raisiny fruits. Adding the hot water, the wet aromatics have interesting savory sweet qualities, dark brown bread in the oven, cooked berry and more raisin fruits (think pie). It's a coffee I just want to sit and smell for as long as possible - these are highly attractive aromatics! The cup is vividly bright, with strong honey-lemonade flavors, red berry, toasted nut, and praline. It's quite sweet, but not in the typical wet-process Costa Rica way. The body is dense, thick. It definitely reveals itself as a true "honey coffee," a "miel" or pulp natural process. In that respect, the flavors are slightly more rustic, and the opaque body more pronounced, and a distinct "roundness" to the mouthfeel." (http://www.sweetmarias.com/printable_review.php?id=CostaRicaLourdesdeNaranjoGenesisJuly2009)
In a book about wine tasting by an industry outsider, I learned the word 'organoleptic', which is the naming of the sensory qualities of a particular substance. So correlating these organoleptic descriptors with what is actually in the cup becomes the challenge. Relating this to my coffee here, I got no "honey-lemonade", no "praline". I can make the leap to "red berry" as I taste a sort of sweet, astringency that I label "cough syrup" - the red kind. Was that cherry? But this process is like hallucinating. And then it is like sitting in your hallucinations long enough to describe them vividly. And then to "listen" to enough other hallucinations that you learn your "cough syrup" is everyone else's "vividly bright" "red berry". Is this healthy?
My tongue has a light buzz from the cup I finished fifteen minutes ago with a hazy sensation in the rest of my mouth. Haziness, to me, is a leftover sensation, like the sensation moments after fingers stoke the skin. The hazy sensation is full in the way that it encompasses the whole mouth and multiple sensory paths; it is not sweet or sour, or tart, though it might edge toward bitter - it is well rounded. One of the joys of coffee may be that the flavor stays with you so long. I have recalled a cup consumed first thing in the morning many hours later, thinking back to its loveliness, sweetness, or clarity.
But in Coffee, like in Wine, certain specific assignations are given to certain labels. And I am not sure how to figure these out. In the meantime, I will keep on tasting and see if my "cough syrups" and "good" can progress to "praline", "honey-lemonade" and maybe even "lead-pencil shavings" and "leather".
posted by Alex C at 8:51 AM
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