Smells Like Sweet Potatoes

Roasted samples from Royal Coffee New York ready for the cupping.

Finally got around to roasting the samples from Royal yesterday and cupped them today. The problem with cupping at The Spro is that I'm continually serving customers, which means that cupping five samples took all day long. It took awhile, but I got through them. Unfortunately, I did not find any of the coffees to be compelling. Nothing to get excited over. Nothing that I'm rushing out to purchase. Some were nice. Some were not. None of them were horrible, though. Some just were "meh" - kinda nothing on the palate.

It seems like this sourcing and roasting thing is going to take a long, long time.

Juan Manuel happened to be at The Spro today so I invited him to join in the cupping. Not too long after, my old friend and business partner, Sam Holmes stopped by with his son Michael to return some books and joined in the cupping. At first, I didn't think Michael was interested but at one point he just walked up, took a sniff and laid down some science. Descriptions such as "sweet potato," "metallic," "boiled potatoes" and more poured from his lips. And he was right. Quite impressive to see this young man working the cupping spoon along with the rest of us and, hopefully, a good omen for the appreciation of coffee.

Michael Holmes rockin' the slurp while cupping an El Salvador Cerra Las Ranas.