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!
Hello @mdosev
Oh, I didn't know that!
That's some interesting info about coffee though, and I like your testing method.
BTW, your notes might be messy to you, but your hand writing is neat, and consistent. If I had hand-written an essay, there would be three different handwritings, as if it were from three different people🤣...
I hope you're having a nice weekend:)))
I also didn’t know that fact for the Kenyan coffee, until I read the article about these 5 coffees. Thank you commenting my handwriting. Actually when I’m in a hurry I don’t understand even my handwriting all the time, but sometimes even I’m surprised with the results 😁
This whole experience with these different coffees was very interesting to me! Thanks for stopping by, as usual!
You're welcome.
It happens to me too 🤣
Hello @mdosev all a professional in coffee tasting, I'm a little jealous, you have been lucky enough to acquire surely 5 of the best coffees that exist, I hope you have luck in the selection and you can win that prize 😉.
Thanks for the nice comment. I don’t know if they are the best coffee, but surely each of them is very unique! Kenya has always offered a really beautiful coffee. Thanks for stopping by!
That's right 😊, it's always a pleasure 😉.
That looks enjoyable :D It makes me curious how each of those really differs in taste although you have already described them :D
@cinnccf's post brought me here. Enjoy your coffee!
Thanks a lot! They are really interesting and different coffees. Each one of them has its own character!
I can tell from your descriptions that they are unique from each other. Surely a coffee adventure :)
my gosh! UGh when i saw this post... I was like yo! Coffee?? I never knew you could do much learning from this Kenyan Coffee. What I want is to taste this now! LOL
This Kenyan set is really exclusive and worth every bit of attention! It’s like one of the most rarest Kenyan coffees with overall production on less than 4000 kilograms!
Wow that looks really great, what a curious fact that you give when you say that you can not buy coffee from a single farm and explain the reasons why, I liked the whole process you did for the coffee tasting, the photos were very good, the explanation excellent, I would like to make a coffee tasting would be a phenomenal experience, your publication is wonderful.
I bet that you’ll find a way to order at least 3 different coffees and compare them blindly. Specialty coffee becomes very popular nowadays, so you’ll most probably find a shop, even online one, pretty easily. You don’t need much of an equipment for this sampling.
For the coffees that I ordered, it’s really nice that the shop managed to acquire these unique coffees directly from the farmers.
Dream big, little fellow!
I never knew something like this competition even exist. I'm Glad to know how things happen and it's seems very interesting
Tho i feel coffee is too heavy for me or didn't tried professional yet not so lucky for this experience but i would love to try 4th one if i had a chance.
Looking forward to see who's going to win.
Happy sunday!
Specialty coffee sometimes tastes light as a tea. I don’t mean espresso which is very concentrated, but something like filter coffee, of French press.
Maybe tomorrow we will understand the results of voting and the winner. Thanks for the nice comment!
Yea true, it depends on the person making right?
Wish you all the best, excited to see who will be winner. My pleasure, really nice to meet you.
Yeah coffie is good but here is India we taste tea also. I have ever tried tea Darjeeling or Assam?
I’m not that much into the tea culture. I enjoy some teas from time to time, but it’s not my main passion.
Man i can even imagine myself from here the aroma fresh and strong from here. Wish the internet can evolve for us to smell and taste it 😁😁
Who knows, maybe someday we will have the ability to smell aromas on the wire 😁
Thanks for stopping by!
Yup who knows. Most welcome my friend😁
That looks like a fun exercise. I would enjoy that. Question: how can a coffee be crunchy? 🤔
😂
Crunchy in the means of acidic and when you try it it feels like you bite a fresh apple. I think that sometimes coffee experts use this term to describe the coffee tastes, although it’s a bit unusual. When I heard some people using it for the first time it was also unusual for me 😁
Okay that makes...some sense. Lol Good to know. I like the term, especially now that I understand it 👍
This is like someone tells you that some coffee is biting with its bitterness. It will not bite you literally… 😁
It’s just the term used in another context. 😜
Yeah that makes sense
this looks like a good coffee
Hi @mdosev,
It's a pity I didn't read this sooner. I think your coffee tasting experience is fabulous.
I have read that Kenyan coffee beans have fruity tones and from what you tell of your experience it seems to be so. Although the 5th and 3rd samples were more chocolatey.
I was going to ask you if you knew the degree of roasting of the coffee, but I imagine that not knowing it is part of the blind cupping to have perhaps an appreciation without the influence of this information.
I hope you win your 1 Kg of coffee, best of luck with that! ☕️
Well, I didn’t win the coffee. The winner was announced like yesterday. So… maybe next time!
The roasting of the coffees was about little darker from the typical roast for this company. And they already announced all the coffees. They are all Medium-Light roasts, so they are still not so darkly roasted, and indeed Kenyan coffees are very fruity and flavorful. And they are after a harvesting and processing campaign right now, so there are very fresh coffees available!
Thanks for stopping by!
Oh, I thought the winners would be announced with more time. Well even though you didn't turn out to be the owner of those coffees I think with the cupping experience you are already a winner.
Regards.
Original Photo Canva