Wednesday, July 20, 2011
COFFEE? BEER?
What is it about coffee's "acquired taste" that makes it so damn good once you've acquired it? I suppose not all coffee is good in my mind. Much the same with beer... What is it about coffee that grabs me? It must be the complexity of flavor as with beer. But coffee is just one ingredient. How complex can you get? Beer's complexity comes from the blending of several ingredients. Coffee: just beans. And magical beans they are! I am currently drinking an Ethiopian "blend" from Caribou. What makes this a blend? Maybe I am misled... Anyone care to clarify? When I started drinking coffee it was all dark roasts I drank. When I started drinking beer...mostly into porters and stouts (dark beer). Now I find myself getting into lighter roasts, such as this Ethiopian - I also really enjoy Caribou's Kenyan. Similar switch with beer. I am now a big fan of the "lighter" IPAs (b/c of their distinct, biting, hoppy, flavor). At the beginning, though, certainly it was not these traits that drew me to the respective brew worlds. It was something much different from what I appreciate them for now. Crazy. Thoughts?
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Not really the ingredients of coffee that are the culprit of different coffee tastes. Factors include how early/late the bean is harvested and the location of where it is grown (weather, humidity, and altitude level all have a hand in determining a coffee's taste). There may be other factors that I've forgotten since working at Caribou. But the word "blend" when describing coffee is kind of misleading. It's all made of beans. However, there can be a mix of beans, like half of a blend made of beans from a Pacific region and half of it made from a North American region for example. They may also use the word "blend" because there are multiple tastes and aftertastes you can sense from just one coffee. Ever go into a Caribou and you see the three words/descriptions under ONE coffee displayed on their menu boards? That could be it. I was never good at sensing all three tastes. I may be too puritanical, or maybe my taste buds are defective.
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