Welcome to the blog post of the first public cupping by TampTamp!
Today we cupped 4 Kenyan coffees: 2 from Oslo Coffee, 1 from Plowshares Coffee, and one from Ritual. We were really excited by this, our inaugural cupping, and are pretty happy with how everything went.
But anyway, down to it.
Coffee #1 was Ritual’s Kenya Gichathaini. We found brown sugar, sage, molasses and soy, as well as milk chocolate in the dry aroma, and at break we found plum, rye bread, and vanilla. Once we tasted it, we thought it had a very high acidity, medium body, and a lingering, dry aftertaste. It tasted of very ripe orange, caramels, wild flowers and tomato sauce. It sweetened as it cooled to taste like orange candy.
Coffee #2 was Oslo Coffee Company’s Kenya Gethumbwini AA. Oslo has recently begun to roast their own coffee out of a warehouse in Williamsburg, so we were really excited to get to try their coffee. They sent us two different versions of this coffee, and we found big differences between the two. In the dry fragrance, we found a mild berry, chocolate orange, and sweet baker’s chocolate. On the break we got chocolate and a berry compote like sweetness. It had a high acidity, thin body, and a lingering dryness. It tasted like flowers, grapefruit soda, bitter chocolate, raspberry and grape juice.
Coffee #3 was the other Kenyan from Oslo. This was a much more savory coffee, and juicier. On the dry fragrance, we found currant, steak, tomato, and semi-sweet chocolate, on the break we had coconuts, chocolate covered strawberries, and a toasty lavender. It had a medium acidity heavy body, and a lingering juicy aftertaste. It tasted like tomato vine, tannins, stewed carrots, and cooled to chocolate and pinot noir.
#4 was the Plowshare Coffee Roaster’s Nyeri Nduma. We’ve had this coffee before and liked it, and are pretty familiar with it. For the dry aroma we found cashew, nutty-buttery-pepper, and strawberry milk. On the break, we had lemon bar, orange chocolate, and mint. We thought the acidity was high like a granny smith apple, had a medium body, and a very dry aftertaste. It tasted like tomatoes and mint chewing gum
Overall, our favorites were split between coffee #1 and coffee #3. While #1 was really spectacular and would knock anyone’s socks off, we thought that #3 was mellow enough to drink every day for breakfast while still being interesting enough to grab your attention.
So that’s it. We are always looking for more coffee roasters to want to send us some coffee to try. If you would like us to cup them some upcoming Tuesday, let us know!
See you next week!