The "Smell the coffee" lecture by Dr Tristan Dew from
Was very informative with all of the theory behind coffee. The process in which coffee beans were grown to arriving in jars in supermarket was very detailed and has provide me with more information on how much effort has been put for it to arrive to us. Statistics and facts were also given to demonstrate whether or not caffeine is good for us. With evidences backing the both sides, it is still hard to demonstrate how much is "moderate" for us to drink per day that we may be healthy. To me, the definition of the word "moderate", varies between individual and as a result no exact evidence yet provide on how much cups of coffee can we exactly consume without being unhealthy.
My favourite part of the session was this next part. We were given the opportunity to taste different varieties of coffee. Coffee roasters at the Glydes House in Bradford gave us a master crash course on being tasters. Coffee beans were grounded and then roasted in front of our eyes. We then learnt to smell the grounded coffee. Hmmmmm..... :)
Next, the cups of grounded coffee were heated by adding hot water where a layer of crystal were formed at the top of each cup. After cooling down to room temperature, we learnt how to break that layer of crystals and smelling the aroma from the cups of coffee. At that point, my mind woke up from all these caffeine!
The last test was slurping and tasting the varieties of coffee. Given a spoon and a cup to spit it back out, I tasted the different varieties. I know it was not the best looking moments and definitely not very good manners but it was the opportunity to learn to use this technique. Ok, at that point I was definitely awake.
It was sad to leave when the session ended as all I could think about was coffee, coffee and coffee.
