Curating Coffee: How Preparation Reveals Flavor Diversity
Yesterday, I had a wonderful conversation with a lovely young lady who explained to me a bit about coffee I didn't quite realize - on the surface at least. It started when I asked a woman working as a chef at this particular cafe (a cafe which shall remain unnamed for security reasons previously established) if I could order a coffee. I had already finished my meal, and the coffee was simply my way to wash it all down - a brilliant meal btw of Chinese Barbecue Chicken- and enjoy the ambiance of this particular environment. A very artsy and quite loud location at that. Loud in terms of color, not sound.
Now, she had presumed by the back and forth interaction between her and I that all coffees are created equal in my eyes ... to which I corrected her and said, "I'm not saying they're all the same, I'm saying I don't know if they are all the same so I want to try it and find out what may or may not be different about this one." When she came back with the coffee and I had had some time to try a bit of it, I followed my first question up with something along the lines of, "I noticed how you weren't sure if I thought all coffees were the same. I'm curious if to you, there are distinct tastes between the different coffees and distinctions in that that if I don't have that I can't know what to look for." You see, from me secretly to you my dear reader, I haven't really been able to taste a difference between different cups up until now and that's something I'd like to see changed.
Now, at this point, her eyes light up at the thought that I have noticed such a thing about her, and she takes the time to explain to me how machine-made coffees produce a very common taste - even amongst different beans. I didn't ask her any more about the commonness she was referring to, but I am grateful because she gave me right in that moment 'something to look for' in the different cafes I attend in various countries when it comes to trying out their coffee. Let's be frank, there is an obvious difference between in my mind Starbucks coffee and say ... Turkish coffee for instance. But that's not what she's talking about. She drew two more major distinctions in taste for me regarding some key differences to pay attention to, which I won't go into here, not necessarily on the bean side or where it comes from per se, but in the process, preparation, and profile of the coffees I come across in the various establishments I get to pop into on the road.
In short, I was able to right then and there come up with a sort of system for organizing how to categorize taste. That is, you can ask for the how, being far more important than the what in such cases, and the how can speak to the taste in a very particular way. You want to in some fashion look for patterns that align between, cross-referencing how the coffee tastes and how the coffee was brought before you. Across the various pallets, you should be able to eventually if not right away, if you continually categorize and invoke the intentions of the preparer the distinctions between these coffees and where that aligns with the preparation process.
Now, let's be clear, she didn't tell me all of this ... I figured much of it out for myself in terms of the how-to of the systematization, but i want to point to something I see as profound in its simplicity. When you have someone who has been cooking for years and already knows what to look for on that particular subject, the most wonderful thing they can offer a beginner in their own mind I would think as a solid starting point for getting their own journey of uncovering a taste for that subject underway is where to look ... not necessarily what to see. On some level, that's exactly what this woman, seeing as I didn't give her any reason not to, has offered me albeit unbeknownst to her how precisely I choose to use what she's shared. I'm NOT going to let it go to waste.
