How to Hold a Coffee Tasting

How to Hold a Coffee Tasting

According to the Passion for Coffee Web site, our senses can detect 800 flavor characteristics of coffee as compared to only 400 for red wine. This led the pr person for Saeco USA, which is launching seven new home espresso machines this year, to send me a release saying that coffee tastings are a "hot new trend" in home entertaining.

Well, I don't know about that, but if you're interested in trying a coffee tasting, or "cupping," as it's called, here's how: ...

• Once you select your bean, take a quarter ounce of coarse ground roasted coffee.
  
• Heat five ounces of water to just below the boiling point.
  
• Pour the water over the coffee in a circular motion.
• Dip a spoon into the cup (with your nose close to the cup) so that it breaks the top layer of the coffee grinds that floated to the top.
  
• Take approximately half a spoonful of the liquid from the cup.
  
• Quaff it with a loud slurping noise (the noise is made so that you can mix the liquid with the air, spraying it directly over your tongue).
  
• Savor, swish once, and then spit out the liquid.
• Let me know how it goes.