Thank goodness for having a lot of leftovers that are easily microwaveable because we didn’t have a lot of time for preparing dinner yesterday or tonight. RV picked up a Fra’Mani ready-to-heat meal from Costco yesterday – beef braised in Zinfandel with vegetables. The meal serves five [so definitely leftovers!] and has no preservatives or hormone additives! We mixed in some fresh veggies and put that on top of some quinoa.
This type of eating schedule is more typical of us than coming home every night to make dinner. We usually like to eat between 6pm-8pm, but if there’s an event around that time, we have to sneak in a smaller meal beforehand and/or a smaller one between getting home and bedtime. Since it’s a month of eating in, we’ve made more of an effort to have leftovers, rather than just running down to the nearest restaurant for a quick bite. So convenient and tempting!
There wasn’t time for dinner yesterday because of Food Fête. Tonight, we stopped in at Four Barrel for a look behind-the-scenes to learn more about the roasting and sourcing/cupping process.
Tal Mor, head roaster, showed us what was up with the roaster. We watched as two different beans, one from Guatemala and one from Ethiopia, transformed from a green bean to a roasted bean and what we’d expect to see during the process.
He brought out the beans for us to see and smell as they underwent the transformation! For the most part, they smelled like uncooked popcorn kernels and then later like burnt popcorn kernels.
Here is RV sniffing the beans! After the beans are roasted, they’re usually allowed some time to settle. After about five days, they’re ready for cupping/taste-testing!
Before we got to the cupping, Jeremy Tooker, owner, walked us through the sourcing of the beans. Four Barrel trades directly with the farms/coops when possible. By doing so, they are better able to control quality of the product.
Then it was our turn to taste [aka "coffee cupping"] and compare beans. The four types we tried were: Sulawesi Toraja Sapan, Kenya Nyeri Tegu, Guatemala Ojercaibal, and Ethiopia Wollega Leka Wato.
There was some slurping and spitting action going on because it was getting late, and I really didn’t want to stay up all night!
I was very surprised that none of the four that we tried were actually bitter, and you could really taste the difference in flavor from one bean to the next. I think my favorite to taste was the Sulawesi, but the one I enjoyed the smell of the most was the Ethiopian [probably because of its heavier floral notes]. Check out the links for more information about the coffee!
I don’t drink coffee very often, but it was still a very interesting evening. Definitely learned a lot.
What is your coffee preference? What does your favorite coffee taste like?
