On Saturday, the 6th of April 2024 we welcomed some local coffee drinkers to the roastery for our first ever Downriver cupping. Ryan, owner of Downriver, led the cupping by giving an overview of what to expect from a cupping, talking everyone through what kind of sensory experiences we may expect from coffee and why it's such a subjective experience, and how coffee's flavour is impacted by so many factors from origin to cup.
Cupping can be quite a unique experience if you've never done it before. A coffee roaster may cup coffee to sample what bags they want to buy, find a great flavour profile for a new roast, and to evaluate consistency across different batches and seasons.
We used a customised sheet to prompt discussion (see below).
This was really helpful for first-timers to think analytically about coffee. Thankfully, we had such open-minded and engaged attendees that the cupping went off without a hitch. We blind-tasted 12 cups of 6 different coffees which were a mix of single-origins and blends and then revealed what the coffees were afterwards during a discussion of what we thought and experienced during the tasting.
We want to say a huge thank you to all of our attendees for coming along to what was such a fun Saturday morning event!
Keep an eye out for our next cupping coming soon.
