LMSC Enjoyed watching JH’s cupping session today. I managed to find some time today to blind cup all the four. Had someone to weight 10g of each coffee and label the numbers (not what they were) at the bottom of the cup. All coffee was ground at 12% 400 Kruve.
# 1: Had aroma, lighter in acidity, sweeter, light bodied, it was smooth. Overall, this coffee was flavourful, smoother and had higher subjective taste score (7/9) than the rest.
#2: A little more aromatic and lighter bodied than 1. This was less acidic and sweeter than 1. It was also nice, but had a tad tart edge at the finish. The subjective score was 6.5/9
#3: This had an initial caramel aroma soon after breaking the crust. The acidity was equal to 1, but a little more sweeter than 1. The cup was medium bodied but had persistent harshness to it scoring 5.5/9.
#4 : A complex cup, lacked aroma, clarity and was harsher in taste than 3. I did not like this coffee at all. It scored 4/9.
I had to wait until evening to find out what they were. Cup #4 was easier to identify correctly, the remaining 3 was extremely hard to pick. Considering the overall impression of each coffee, I had picked #1 also correctly and mixed up the 2 and 3.
I shall leave it at that.
First, with all respects to roasters, cuppers, and the advantages cupping may have as noted by MWJB, I am not a fan of cupping as silts never get filtered out completely, IMO. one may call it as a bias and I did find them even after 10 mins and might have influenced the cupping outcome.
Second, given my view, I did not make any effort to identify notes which I always enjoy detecting in my brews and espressos.
Third, 10g coffee, 1:15 ratio, 12% 400 Kruve as my normal brews (a lot more fines than cupping at 700 / 1000 Kruve), break the crust at 4 mins, smell the aromas, taste at 10 mins, 15 mins and 20 mins respectively.
Fourth, I looked for aromas, acidity, sweetness, body, finish and the overall likeability. The final score is a reflection of that in my blind cupping.
Fifth, my takeaway from JH’s videos are: (i) huge variations in cupping outcome as roasters’ roasting methodology influences the cup than the decaf process itself; and, ii) do not decide the likeability of one decaf process over the other based on just one roaster. I am happy to be corrected, if my understanding of the live session which I enjoyed watching.
Sixth, the outcome of the bags are listed below, which surprised me.
#1st bag was Swiss Decaf which had the maximum score in terms of likeability
#2nd bag was CO2
#3rd was EA. I had expected this to come on top. It did not.
#4th was caffeinated. The worst performer.
Finally, it was a nice experience but don’t think I gained anything in terms of deciding which process I like the most. I neither had a preference of one decaf process over the other nor will.
Thanks for reading! 😊