Friday, March 5, 2010

Kenya!


ok, so I've found a better phrase "Coffee Geek".
Maybe just Coffee Geek in training ;).
I like it a lot better and I defiantly am not a coffee connoisseur as I'm just taking my first baby steps.

I'm finally taking the time to post this :).

I DO really love trying different coffees, finding the different smells, mouth feels, flavour notes. I find it fascinating.

So, when you taste a coffee there are three different steps and different things that you are looking for. I'll touch on them since this is my first coffee tasting post:

~Aroma
When you smell the coffee (Black of course!), you cup your hand around the top of the cup and really inhale. Some smell nutty, earthy, spicy or floral.
When I did this with the Kenya I thought that it smelled lighter and fruity, and not just fruity but I could really smell the Citrus!

~Acidity
This is not like the acidity in wine, but rather how smooth it leaves your mouth feeling once you have swallowed. I found the Kenya left a very crisp and clean feeling on my tongue-so this means it is quite acidic, something I really like in a coffee.

~Body
This refers to how heavy it feels in your mouth. A good way to think of it is comparing how whole milk and skim milk would feel in your mouth. Whole would be very heavy and skim very light. This is also referred to as mouth feel.
I found Kenya to be very light on my tongue (it has what is referred to as a medium body).

~Flavour
What flavour notes do you taste? Is it earthy, nutty, floral and so forth.
I found the citrus notes in Kenya to be amazingly pronounced.

Another aspect of coffee tasting is pairing-eating a food that ascents the notes that are found in the coffee.

I made lemon loaf to go with my Kenya and found it made the citrus in the Kenya just pop!

I also found that when I added milk and sweetened it a bit (something I rarely do with coffee, just milk please ;) ) it really brought the fruitiness out even more.

African Coffees tend to have a really strong citrus undertone, the defining word for Kenya is Grapefruit.

2 comments:

Lindsay said...

Oh - I needed this post - I've often wondered what to really look for in a coffee. And I like Coffee geek....I've been called a Cuppie...coffee yuppie. :-) Funny though because I only started drinking it since #3 has been here!

Melissa_Rae said...

I remember when I first started working at Starbucks I was amazed by the difference that a food or candy can have on a coffee. I hated coffee but I really grew to have an appreciation for it after I learned about pairings. Fun post! If I wasn't pregnant right now, I'd go have a cup. :)