Even though Munich might not have the biggest specialty coffee scene, I’m blessed to live next to 3 great specialty coffee shops. Just 400m walk from my house door is one of my favourites - Cafe Faber. Even more exciting is that one of my friends works there as part-time barista, so occasionally I get invited to cool events - this time an after hours coffee cupping organized by wonderful Lisa from Oatly.

A 5 minute stroll in the unexpectedly warm October sun and we’re there. A couple more eager faces, preparations inside on the way. Small talk about coffee (my favourite kind). Learned we will be cupping 10 different coffee varieties, all from the same farm in Vista Hermosa, Guatemala - a very interesting concept, I love learning about specific varieties and hope someday to be able to distinguish between them on my own.

We start off getting acquainted with aromas by sniffing the beans and grinds while the water is boiling. Another preparation step - putting the names of varieties on the scoring sheets we got from Lisa. Meanwhile the first cups are being brewed, crust broken, a 5-10 minute wait to let the coffee cool down to tasting temperature and we can finally start using the fancy cupping spoons :)

I don’t have a huge cupping experience, so for me it is still very challenging to figure out the tasting notes and name them. I was really missing my coffee taster’s flavor wheel that I usually use when I’m cupping at home. But the key is focusing on the experience and allowing a little creativity I guess, it’s very subjective anyways. Nevertheless fun to compare the producer’s tasting notes with your own in the end - when there is some overlap an immediate boost to one’s coffee ego is guaranteed!

My favorites turned out to be Gesha with it’s distinguishable sweetness and pleasant acidity inbetween, Maragopache (variety I’ve never heard about before, but the one that stood out to me even from the smell in the beginning) with it’s clarity and freshness that reminded be of dark berries like wild blueberries or black current and Sarchimor with it’s bitter sweetness like nut brittle or roasted almonds. Classics like Bourbon or Maragogype were very tasty as well but also very classy and didn’t get me too excited.

My approach was to taste each variety once first without making notes, mostly just comparing them and picking the ones I like most and then do a second round of more thoughtful tasting, writing down my grades and flavors after each one. And lots of water inbetween. Also turns out socializing and focusing on your sensory experiences is quite a challenge, but I tried my best to manage both. I loved the evening and didn’t even feel majorly caffeinated, hope to get invited to more events like that in the future.