23 Coffees

There is no better way to end a long and interesting week than with a massive cupping of some of the worlds finest coffees. By the end of Friday afternoon, Jodi, Chad, Daniel, April, Chris and I were high & happy from sniffing, slurping and (very little) spitting of the 23 First Harvest Colombia Cup of Excellence winners. We were given a tutorial from Jodi on how to use the official Cup of Excellence scoring forms developed by the legendary George Howell. This form allows the cupper to evaluate the coffee in 8 categories: clean cup, sweetness, acidity, mouthfeel, flavor, balance, aftertaste and overall impression. Other things factored in are aroma (dry, wet & break), defects and roast color. The form is intimidating at first but by the second round we were all starting to get the hang of it. We narrowed it down to 8 coffees that recieved our highest scores and we will be roasting and cupping another round this week to pick our top 2 or 3 that we hope to bid on at the Cup of Excellence auction at the end of this month.