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What We Talk About When We Talk About Cupping |
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Filed under Spotlight on ...
At Market Lane we hold public cuppings every Friday and Saturday from 10-11am.
A cupping is a coffee tasting. At Market Lane, we use it as an opportunity to taste and evaluate our current and newly arrived coffees, our recent roasts, and coffees gifted to us by friends from other roasteries, both near and far. For customers and newcomers, it is a great way to compare coffees side by side, and to begin to develop your palate. When coffees are experienced comparatively, their different flavour profiles emerge. Over time you can identify a Kenyan coffee just by its taste, and you will know what we mean when we describe a coffee's mouth feel, or identify its flavour as fruity or winey or milk chocolaty.
At a cupping there are up to eight coffees on the table. We always taste blind – i.e. we don't know until the end of the session which coffee is which, to avoid preconceptions of what a given coffee 'should' taste like. We start by assessing the dry aroma, then the wet aroma. Then the fun bit: the slurping, and spitting! Our staff will guide you through the evaluation, explaining what we look for when we assess and score our coffees.
This might all sound a little strange or intimidating, but it's actually really informative and fun. We get a whole range of people in: from food, coffee, and wine professionals, to curious customers and brand new newcomers. All are welcome and no prior experience is necessary. Places are limited to six people, so we suggest you arrive about fifteen minutes early to get a place. We also suggest you avoid wearing perfume or strongly scented lotions, so you can evaluate the coffee without finding hints of eau de cologne in the mix!
Come down and join us!
