Photos - One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others

You all know the game we played in the lab last last month and the song that goes with it: it's the simple act of picking the one item in a group that is different. In the coffee world we call this type of tasting challenge "Triangulation" and there are both national and world wide competitions to determine who can best identify the odd one out.

Photos by Devorah Freudiger, Gimme! Coffee

To run this triangulation cupping we set up nine sets of three bowls, in each set two of the coffees are the same and one is different. Sometimes picking the odd one out is easy: I'm sure that if I put a naturally processed coffee in a group with two washed ones every single one of you reading this (coffee professional or not) would be able to pick it out.

However, asking you to pick out the different one from a pairing of two coffees from the same region, that are the same varietal and processed the same way is where things get difficult. And in our lab difficult means interesting.

During a Cup Tasting Championship cuppers are judged by the number of correct samples identified. If there is a tie between competitors the one who got the most right in the least amount of time is named the winner. We didn't set a timer for our cupping exercise, it was all for fun and to test ourselves.

We also decided to go through the entire cupping process, which means we got to sniff the dry aroma of the coffee. This gave us a heads up on which one was different, although we also used our sense of taste and judged the coffees aftertaste and mouthfeel. The cup that was not identical to the other two was marked on the bottom with black dot. This way we knew when we'd chosen the correct one.

As I said, some of the trios were easy, some were hard. The most interesting thing we found during our cupping was that a few of the samples had the same coffees, but the identical pairs were inverted, and that changed how we perceived them. One cup of Mocha Java was easier to pick out from from two cups of Piccolo Mondo than it was to pick out one cup of Piccolo Mondo from two Mocha Javas.

This was a great exercise for us to reconnect with the coffee we taste every day. We had to pay careful attention to how they smelled, tasted and felt in our mouths.

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Photos - Latte Art How To: Part 2 - Rosetta

Ah, the Rosetta. That beautiful, balanced, delicate and complex design that you often see on the top of your Latte. We call it a Rosetta, not a Christmas tree or fern, and it is done with just a flick of the wrist. There are no tools, stamps, or tricks involved. Just a learned method and lots of practice. Now that you have mastered perfect milk, I'll show you how to pour it.

Photos By Gimme! Staff

Start with your textured (and polished) milk and a shot of espresso. The first part of of pouring is getting your milk to go under the crema of the shot without disturbing it too much. I tilt the cup slightly towards my pitcher to create a deeper pool to pour into.

Then get your pitcher as close to the rim of your cup as you can without dumping the milk all over the place.

Once you are ready to pour into your shot, do so with force! I think of punching it trough, or aiming for the bottom of cup. The goal is to get under the top layer of your shot. By lifting up the back of your pitcher, therefore having a steep angle you are pouring from, you will achieve enough force.

After the initial punch of milk you want to slow things way down so that you preserve the top layer, and therefore the color, of your espresso. Nice latte art is all about contrast, so preserving the color is very important. Too much mixing and your entire drink will be a dull brown. You slow things down by lowering the back of your pitcher, and decreasing the rate your milk is flowing out.

Once you are nearing the lip of your cup, bring the tip of your pitcher as close to the rising surface of your drink as you can. Also, now is the time to move the point of your pitcher to the far side of your cup to start laying down art.

Really get the point of your pitcher down into the cup. I've been known to even clink the pitcher on the rim! Once you are close to the surface and at the far side of your cup start a gentle wiggling motion with your wrist. Keep this motion very gentile, just using your fingers. The force of your wrist of arm is not necessary.

You will start to see ribbons of white floating on the surface of your drink. This is the start of your rosetta! Keep wiggling very gently and slowly start to move back towards the neer side of your cup.

Keep your wiggle constant and your pull back slow. You should not be letting out very much milk at this point and you have plenty of time to create many layers in your design.

Keep pulling back to the edge of the cup. The further back you can go without overflowing, the more full and layered your design will be. Then you pull you steam of milk back trough your design towards the opposite side of the cup with a very gentle stream of milk. This pulls all the layers of the leaves together.

There you have it: one rosetta. A true classic, they are always beautiful and never perfect. Don't loose hope if you overflow or your design is flawed. Just keep practicing and enjoying all the delicious mistakes.

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