Sunday, February 15, 2009

Cupping @ Barefoot Coffee Roasters

I finally made it to a free Cupping at Barefoot Coffee Roasters. For those of you who haven't been there, it's a café and roastery located in Santa Clara. I believe they have another one in Palo Alto as well.

We arrived 45 minutes early so Luigi and I decided to grab a pot of Green tea "Tuo-Cha" (which was just okay taste-wise, IMO) and a rasberry brioche donut made by Satura Cakes which was decent. (Satura Cakes makes a mean Kouign Amann though ! Practically better than the one I had in Britanny. Oops, did I just say that?!)
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Shortly, we started the cupping. Ummm more caffeine !
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Here is Steve, the barista (o?) who is in charge of the cupping demos.
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We were given a blind tasting. He prepared three different types of beans.

The silver cup was filled with lightly roasted beans from El Salvador. Apparently it was sweet and savory with hints of sun-dried tomato. (I am not there yet. I just know I found it too acidic).

The blue cup was an Ethiopian Sidamo - arabica beans noted for it's bold spice, chocolate, and/or floral aromas. I preferred this most because of the more bold and woody flavor and less acidic taste. But unfortunately, I haven't been blown away by any coffee here like the espressos I've had in Italy.

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The green cup was filled with a decaf Sumatra which I found to be nicely balanced yet a bit bland with a short finish. Apparently it had floral hints of lavendar (again, not there yet).

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Luigi !
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I've always loved coffee and really want to learn more about it. (Had my first cup when I was 11 !) This cupping demo was a lot of fun. I liked the fact that Steven decided to do a blind tasting first as to not be influenced by the type of bean. Will be stopping by more often.

Barefoot Coffee Roasters‎
5237 Stevens Creek Blvd
Santa Clara, CA‎
(408) 248-4500‎

2 comments:

Kristina said...

Ooohhh... that sounds good. Did you know that Carlo tried to bring us there and said that you had to take off your shoes because it was a "barefoot" coffeehouse? Sheesh.

Rico said...

Careful with the pinky sticking out don't wanna give the wrong impression hehee just kiding.
Sounds really great.