Coffee Tasting #mylifesimplysweet

For our first Fall tasting event we decided we would do a coffee tasting. Stumptown Coffee Roasters gladly supplied a few of their amazing coffees for the tasting. If you haven't checked them out here in L.A. they just opened a store in Downtown, see my visit here. You'll love their coffee and the cool vibe of the place.

Mind you this was my first ever coffee tasting, which is surprising considering how much I love it. I asked around at local coffee roasters for the best way to go about this. Cupping is the method that most are doing, it's really for the experts. So I decided to use a French Press method. This way it's something that everyone can easily duplicate. I borrowed and bought a few French Presses for the occasion.

As I didn't want to make this too formal and stop the party flow, we discreetly mentioned to everyone that it was time do to the tasting if they were interested. We had an even mix of men and women who participated.  I supplied the coffee mugs from Anthropologie and typed up the instructions as follows: 

Tasting Instructions 

Step 1: Take a Cup and Piece of Paper

Step 2: Pour a little Coffee & Taste

Step 3: Write Down Notes Next to # 

Step 4: Pick Your Favorite

Step 5: Revelation of Brand (End of Night) 

Before the party I prepared the notes by staining this cute paper from Anna Rifle Paper Co. purchased from Anthropologie with a few coffee cup marks. Funny thing happened at the party a few of my friends sorted thru the papers to find a clean one, finally realizing that I purposely stained them. Oh I love you guys!

The other thing I did was make this a blind coffee tasting. I put #'s on all the French Presses and put the coffee in Paper Bags all numbered as well. This way if anyone moved a pot of coffee around we still knew which brand it was.  All together I had 7 coffee's to taste. In the future I think I'd pick 5 at the most. 

Here's the set-up: 

The last photo is the reveal. Gather everyone who tasted the coffee and made notes. One by one reveal what brand is in the bag. You can read a few coffee notes from the tasters and any notes you have from the brands yourself. It's up to you how formal you want this to be.

One of the great things during the tasting is it really stimulated conversation between everyone. It wasn't as easy as I thought to come up with descriptive words on what you were tasting. Maybe next time I'll put some adjectives or teaser words around to help that out. Maybe notes from the coffee roasters.

Another thing I learned, is you need something to cleanse your palate. Water maybe, well I had Acorn shaped sugar cookies to put out. Which warranted one comment on Coffee #6 "Good with Cookies."  Hmmm?

What brands of coffee did I use?  Los Angeles has quite a coffee scene these days with a few local coffee roasters and the newly opened Stumptown Coffee, based in Portland. My suggestion is use local coffee roasters and brands, make it easy for your guest to go out and buy their favorites.

So here's what we tasted and there was no clear winner. I expected that, it's like wine, it's what taste good to you.

#1 Handsome Coffee Roasters - Cristobal Fernandez

#2 Stumptown Coffee Roasters - Hair Bender

#3 Intelligentsia - Organic La Perla Oaxaca Mexico

#4 Handsome Coffee Roasters - Los Girasoles

#5 Groundwork - Black Gold

#6 Folgers (I had to throw in a basic less booszchee brand) 

#7 Stumptown Coffee Roasters - Holler Mountain

Throw in a basic coffee that you can get at your local grocery store. This makes for a fun evening and teasing. My fellow coffee snob and occasional blogger Roger happened to pick Folgers and well we can't stop teasing the poor man. Here's his notes:

We couldn't let people leave without trying Stumptown Coffee who was so kind as to supply us a few bags of coffee for the tasting. This meant we sent everyone home with a bag of beans. #mylifesimplysweet

Stumptown Open in Los Angeles

I am outside my one post per day. But I found out Stumptown Coffee Roasters opened up in Los Angeles yesterday.  Location is 806 S. Sante Fe, in Downtown LA.  I love this new space, can't say I am super glad it's in DTLA. Would love something closer to the Westside, cause as you all know it takes hours sometimes to go 10 miles here.

LA Times photographer was there today and there should be something online at LATIMES.com this afternoon about the opening. Great space, tall ceilings, amazing roasting machines.  It's all industrial with warm wood tones and that's just the decor. 

I need a these lamps AND I need a space where I could hang these too. 

On to the coffee. There are nice choices, I've already done a mini tasting of the coffee during my camping trip here. So I'm familiar with a few of the blends. I ordered a Latte, it was milky smooth, but I think I'll be moving back to Macchiato's, I'm not such a milk person these days, I just enjoy the jolt of the beans by themselves.

Oh and treats a Maple BACON scone. And yes there was a piece of bacon on top. I couldn't order it, GUILT, but I will when I go back when I feel less guilty.

I am going to call this image above the Stumptown Coffee Roasters Rolls Royce. It is a beautiful machine for brewing the espresso. 

Digging there logo and well I got so excited about drinking this I mixed the latte art with my raw sugar. Oh well. 

Products peeps, I love mugs, and tin camping mugs even more.  

Wish you were here enjoying a great

cup of coffee with me in this new #DTLA

Stumptown Coffee location.

Cheers Tanya. 

Stumptown Coffee Roasters

In a few months my fellow bloggers and I are doing an event that will include a coffee tasting.  The good folks at Stumptown Coffee Roasters have already agreed to submit there coffee for this tasting. This past Labor Day weekend we went camping a perfect place to try some new coffee. Thanks to Stumptown we had the opportunity to try some amazing coffees. I'm kicking myself for not purchasing the camping coffee mugs, they are perfect. They will be going in my camping kit for the next time.

The two we tried were Ethiopia Mordecofe (I kept calling this one Mordecai, as in the bible character) and Holler Mountain.

Incidentally my fellow coffee aficionado, Gita, also gifted Ethiopia Mordecofe to me on our last visit to San Jose. She's up in Seattle and has been bragging about Stumptown for a few months. We have our own little coffee exchange, I sent her a bag of Handsome Coffee Roaster beans she brought me Stumptown.

Ethiopia Mordecofe definitely has a fruity taste. Can I say, seriously, tasting coffee out in the woods, before everyone is awake, just opens all the senses. Aaron, as in the other half of Deborah at my.life.at.playtime loved this one. He's a tea snob and after I read the flavor notes, which include black tea, orange blossom and bergamot which converge (their word) with flavors of lime, peach and hops. I told him you like it cause it has flavors of black tea. This is a good cup of coffee that everyone enjoyed. I think Gita mixed it with some Handsome Coffee and said it was mind blowingly good.

The second bag we tried was Holler Mountain, I really liked this blend. It went perfect with french toast and bacon. The flavor notes are syrupy, with notes of blackberry, hazelnut and toffee. We brewed these coffees two different ways. We used a French Press above from Target (only $12) and brewed the other in old fashion percolator.

I can't wait till the official coffee tasting where we all can take notes on each coffee and pick our favorites. I figure it's like wine or art, it's subjective and really your taste.  Thanks to Stumptown for letting me try these coffee's before the big event. I might be slightly biased now to Stumptown, which isn't a bad thing, since they'll be opening in LA very soon.