Swiss Coffee Fun with European Coffee Trip

he European Coffee Trip were in Switzerland and I got to meet them!

and the 6th best palate in the World belongs to…

Mathias Bühler from Switzerland! Stunning results!

 

Mathias Bühler from Switzerland grabbed the 6th place at the World Cup Tasting Championship part of the Melbourne International Coffee Expo 2014!  Congratulations!

Here are all the results:

Round 1

 

Quarterfinals

 

Semifinals

The finals will be tomorrow, Sunday the 18th with a heat of four – USA, Netherlands, Finland and Taiwain! It’s going to be interesting!

English cupping session

Two days ago, Tuesday night  to be exact, the public coffee cupping in Bear Brothers and Cow took place once again.  I’m saying once again, because I think this was also their intention – to make the public cupping sessions a tradition. And it’s definitely a good one. There are not many places in Switzerland, that organize public cupping sessions, if not any at all. But that’s going to change.

The Bear Brothers – Benny and Kai Keong – had brought for us a lot of beans from their recent trip to London. And when I say a lot, I mean alotalot. After Kai Keong’s  selection, because it should have been pointless to cup them all at once, we cupped seven different coffees, from seven different English roasters. All of them were washed, except for one natural. So it was useful for me to see the difference in taste connected to how the coffee was processed. So, these were the chosen ones:

• Guatemala, La patrona, washed Pacamara roasted by Caravan Coffee
• Nicaragua, Finca El Limon, washed Javanica roasted by Climpson&Sons
• Colombia, La Predera, Cup of Excellence Lot 18, washed Caturra roasted by UNION hand-roasted coffee
• Colombia, Finca la Esmeralda, washed Caturra and Bourbon roasted by Workshop Coffee Company
• Burundi, Buziraguhindwa, washed Bourbon roasted by Notes
• Ethiopia, Sidamo, washed Heirloom roasted by Mission Coffee Works
• Brazil, Fazenda Rainha, this was the natural roasted by St.Ali (if I’m not wrong)

Kai Keong weighing the beans

It was very interesting indeed. The one that I  really liked was one of the Colombians – La Predera, roasted  by UNION. It was very tea-like and had this crisp acidity that I really enjoy. Actually all of these coffees were kind of crisp and very aromatic, because they were all lightly roasted. It’s amazing how many more aromas you can catch in such beans.

Czech Coffee Cupping in Zurich

There was coffee cupping in Bear Brothers and Cow last night, it’s the second time we went to cup some coffee there (ahh, I want so badly to be “we” again…Karla, Snehaa, I know you’re reading this, I miss you and can’t wait for you to be back!), you can read about it here.It was the second time I went for cupping there, even though the guys, Kai Keong and Benny, organize cupping sessions quite often. This time though the reason was the coffee lover and friend Ales, who came on a visit to Zurich and brought some coffee samples from Czech roasteries. These samples are from the best what these roasteries had to offer at that time, so there’s no special selection for or purpose of the cupping, but it was interesting, fun and besides it’s always good to meet fellow coffee enthusiasts. On the photos you can see Ales measuring the beans before the grinding.

 

These were the coffee beans:

– Kenya Gaturiri AA by Doubleshot
– Colombia Carlos Imbachi – Caturra by Doubleshot
– Costa Rica La Lia – Catuai  by La Boheme Café
– Costa Rica Don Mayo – Caturra, Catuai  by La Boheme Café
– Kenya Karogoto AA – SL 28, SL 34 by La Boheme Café
– Ethiopia Sidamo by Rebelbean
– Indonesia Sumatra Lintong Raja Batak by Orginal Coffee
– India – Plantation AA by Coffee Melena

We started with a blind tasting, I think everybody could pick out the Sumatra –  very earthy and chocolaty – compared to the others it really stood out. Sumatras usually make better espresso, than filter coffee. The American coffees were fruity, a bit like compote with the aftertaste of honey. The ones from Kenya and Ethiopia were very fragrant and intense and you could easily taste the difference. The session was a good exercise, trying to taste the difference between the beans grown on different continents and trying to store them in your memory. Also there were one or two coffees that were natural, but still for me is a bit tricky to identify even that.

As a whole I’m pleasantly surprised by Czech coffee roasters, it seems the coffee culture in Czech Republic is thriving. Ales says that it really is developing quite fast and that only before a couple of years there hadn’t been almost anything on the Czech coffee scene. This makes me wonder when Bulgarian coffee culture will reach this level. I cannot say that specialty coffee haven’t yet reached the country, actually before a month or two the first ever specialty coffee bar in Sofia opened – Coffee Religion. And I’m sure there will be more
coming soon, so we’ll see.

Anyway, thank you Kai Keong and Benny for organizing this, and Ales, thank you for bringing the coffee from Czech Republic, it was very nice of you to give us a sneak peak of the Czech coffee culture. I hope we end up cupping coffee together again somewhere. It will be the third time, right?

There’s a first for everything

We’re talking about coffee cupping, I don’t know what are you thinking about. Yesterday we went to Zurich for a cupping session in the relatively new pop up coffee shop Bear Brothers & Cow. The cupping itself, even though it was public, it was rather intimate since we were just a couple of people.

 We tasted seven filter roasts – different varieties from Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya and Costa Rica. Five of them were roasted in Berlin – one from Bonanza Coffee the others by The Barn Roastery. There was one from Stoll Kaffee in Zurich and one from the fairly famous Square Mile Coffee Roasters in based in London. For us, as absolute newbies in coffee cupping, it was hard to assess the coffees’ body, taste and flavour. While the their basic differences are easy to perceive, to recognize the finer nuances you need a great deal of experience. For the trained cupper every aspect of the coffee that is sampled matters – variety, processing method, taste, body, sweetness, acidity, flavour, aftertaste and the list continues. For us, well…I think we got the difference between the naturals and the washed ones. The naturals are more intense in flavour and don’t taste like common coffee. Actually, non of these coffees tasted like the grinded coffee you buy from the supermarket. That’s what I like about specialty coffee, it always surprises you with it’s aroma and taste.

And these are the brothers from Bear Brothers & Cow. Even though they’re not brothers, I just started calling them this way, which makes me wonder, who’s the cow then?

We had a great evening and I’m sure we’re going to continue participating in such wonderful coffee events as the public cupping in Bear Brothers & Cow. From next time we’ll also try to give you more detailed information about the coffee we’re tasting.