I have no idea how I landed on the Topeca Coffee website towards the end of last year but there I was. And I discovered that they hold a free cupping session on the first Friday morning of each month. Since that was coming up in a few days, I excitedly signed up for it.

As the marketing director of 21st Sensory, Inc. for three years, I am very familiar with the sensory analysis of foods, beverages (other than coffee) and personal care products. And that is where I first heard about coffee cupping from one of our ingredient salesman friends.

I knew then, being the coffee achiever that I am, that cupping coffee is something I for sure wanted to do someday and before my Topeca experience I had the chance one other time.  It was interesting and exciting to actually see how they determine which are the good coffees.

I knew what to expect when I got to Topeca’s Roastery.

When I walked in, I felt like I had entered Lauri’s Playground. 🙂

First we me Ian Picco, Topeca’s Director of Coffee. Is that NOT the BEST title? He took us on a tour of the Roastery.

He explained how their entire process works from shipping, roasting, packaging and shipping back out.  I told David we could fill up one of our empty rooms at the house with one of these beauties. 😉

Then we saw where the beans are stored, in a climate controlled space, until they are ready to be roasted.

The bags are pretty!

Then we finally got to do the cupping. This was so interesting and I learned so much. I am a big fan of Sumatran coffee. When Ian said that he expects to taste spicey notes, like green pepper and radish, in a good Sumatran bean I had never heard of that before. But I was able to pick it out knowing I should be on the lookout for it.

The beans were ground and boiling water poured over them.

We went around and smelled all of the different beans and then when they cooled down, we did the actual tasting of them. This involves taking a puddle of coffee into the spoon and doing a strong slurp to aspirate the coffee over the entire mouth so you hit all of your taste buds. Since you taste differently in different parts of your tongue this ensures you taste it properly.

When we were finished I decided my two favorites were these.

Which translates to these when I buy them off the shelf or their website.

Now that the ice is melted, that’s my plan! Thank you so much to Ian and Topeca Coffee for offering this experience. It was fabu! 🙂

If you’d like to do a cupping at the Topeca Roastery, you can click through here to register for the next class. Have fun and happy cupping! 🙂