I dive into the world of professional coffee tasters. A box of 5 Kenyan coffees is my target today. Coffee cupping at home.

Well, well… it’s Saturday and this is one of the most exciting coffee moments for me. As you may know from my posts in the community, I purchase only specialty coffee lately and it is from a specific supplier - Dabov Specialty Coffee. The founder of the company travels the world every year with one ultimate purpose - to find the best coffees in the world and deliver them to his customers here in Bulgaria. Jordan Dabov was in Kenya maybe two months ago and he claims to have picked one of the best tasting coffees and they are already here in Bulgaria. So he offers a box of 5 Kenyan coffees, 200 grams each and he offers them for a pretty sweet price. I paid total of 30$ for thin particular order and it is for 1 kilogram of freshly roasted coffee. Brilliant!

After this deal, I think that each one of these coffees will cost at least 8$-10$ each, and probably about 15$ for the most expensive one. This cannot be much better, right? When I saw this offer, I decided really fast that I had to buy them. I already had the grinder, so although I had coffee for one more month, I picked the 5 Kenyan. And not only that cheap price, whoever ordered this box, receives a link where he can vote for his favorite coffee. After the end of the month one person will be picked and he will receive 1 kilogram of the best coffee, which will become also a coffee of the month in August. Kenyan coffee is really one of the finest ones and I’m really happy to be part of this experiment.

Beans are already weighed

One interesting fact: Do you know that you cannot buy a Kenyan coffee from a single farm and single type? Kenyan producers from same region often combine their best coffees and sell them as a mixed product from a region or a pact of several different farms. That’s because the Kenyan farmers don’t have the means and equipment to process their crop, so most commonly they sell their product to a processing facilities that tend to combine the yield of multiple farmers. Dabov has reached directly to the farmers and found five unique coffees. All the coffees are from micro batches of no more than 1000 kilograms of final product and usually this number is closer to 500, so I’ve really bought a pretty limited and special coffee. Some farmers have decided to pick the best and most evenly ripen coffee cherries in order to deliver a great product and of course receive a proper payment for it. That’s one more reason to love the work of this man - Jordan Dabov. He makes the most limited coffees available for people like me.

Coffee is ground and waiting for the hot water

Now, to the process of cupping. You’ll most probably need similar, if not the same cups or glasses. The minimum quantity is about 200ml each. The amount of coffee needed is about 12 grams per cup. The grinding size is often a bit courser, like the one used for French press method and the brewing time has to be about 4 minutes. I have to first grind the coffee, put it into 5 different cups, for my case and brew them with boiling water. After 4 minutes have passed you must stir the ground beans that are sitting on the top in order to stop the brewing process. It’s good to sample the coffee in the next half an hour but even if it’s on a room temperature, you really will be able to catch the lovely or not so lovely aromas. The process of brewing is easily stopped with some stirring of the top crust of ground beans.

Coffees are brewing for approximately 4 minutes

Stirring with a spoon

Stirred vs in stirred cup

Actually this is the method that is used to sample the coffees in the Cup of Excellence series competition and also in a various of auctions all around the world. And although the professional coffee hunters will do this in order to deliver a great product to their client, I’ll do It like a game. A pure pleasuring moment. And even if I don’t do it perfectly, it will not bother me at all.

My notes are a bit messy, but after all I understand them.

Now let’s dive into sampling these 5 coffees. This usually will be done with the help of a tasting sheet, but I guess I will have to improvise with writing down the tasting notes. You’ll also need a tasting spoon and a glass of water where you can rinse the spoons between the different tastings. I don’t have the kind of a typical cupping spoon, but I guess mine will also serve the purpose relatively well. 😁

Coffee #1

Aroma in bag: 3/3
Acidity: 2/3
Sweetness: 3/3
Intensity: 3/3
This coffee was promoted like the favorite one of the Dabov’s roaster. First of all it starts crunchy with its higher acidity. It’s like a red apple to me. The finish is pretty creamy and silky.

Coffee #2

Aroma in bag: 3/3
Acidity: 1/3
Sweetness:3/3
Intensity: 3/3

This coffee is sweeter definitely, like berries and and some fruit jam. It’s not so acidic and feels more balanced. It still has this complexity in flavor, though the finish is not so soft as with the first coffee.

Coffee #3

Aroma in bag 2/3
Acidity: 2/3
Sweetness: 2/3
Intensity: 1/3

After the first two coffees, who’s one wasn’t intensive at all. I wonder if I had started here it would taste different to me. I think it has more chocolate in the flavor, although the beginning is fresh and strawberry like. Then at the end it has this dark chocolate aftertaste.

Coffee #4

Aroma in bag: 2/3
Acidity: 2/3
Sweetness: 2/3
Intensity: 2/3

The number 4 coffee sample is more fruitful than the previous one. It has this mixed Berry flavor. It has medium body still with a lot of complex. The balance between sweetness and acidity was very good.

Coffee #5

Aroma in bag: 1/3
Acidity: 2/3
Sweetness: 2/3
Intensity:2/3

This was very tough coffee for me to evaluate. It didn’t have any pronounced fruitful flavors for me. It had its freshness, but the body was not so full. It still had this chocolate finish, but maybe a less intensive, like milk chocolate.

Overall decision:
As you can see the beans of coffee samples 1,2 and 3 are bigger than the other. I guess the roast level is about the same. The beans of 4 and 5 samples are more rounded, almost circular, but still smaller than the others.

For me 5th place goes to coffee #5 and fourth place goes to coffee #3. This means samples with numbers 1,2 and 4 are still in the competition. With further tasting I decided that the third place will go to the #4 coffee.

The dilemma was whether I like the most fresh and crunchy #1 coffee, or I am more towards the more sweet #2 coffee. I like them equally, but really had to choose only one for the poll and the game of Dabov Specialty Coffee. I finally decided to go for the #2 coffee. I really think that in another day I may end with choosing the other coffee, but today that’s my mood.

Finally, he whole process was very interesting and yet a bit challenging. I don’t know how these people are so good at cupping. They pretty easily can have 20-30 different coffees every day and they have to judge them blindly. I enjoyed the coffee tasting, because it was like a game to me. Now… we’ll have to wait for the results and hopefully I will win 1kg of the best Kenyan coffee.

Have a nice weekend and enjoy the time with nice people and tasty coffee. See you soon!