mie

i didn't take any pictures yet, so i stole this from whorange.net which is a really cool site about designs. it's supposed to be cup of excellence judges riding a bus (and the dangers we meet on the road). because there's always a lot of bus riding going on. here in brasil, the coffee excellence centre where we do all the cupping is a bus ride away from machado where we're staying throughout the week. located in mina gerais, machado is about 4 hours north of sao paulo by car. we just finished cupping - day one is always about calibrating the judges. i think the necessity of spending a day calibrating can be discussed, however, it was obvious that everyone was excited to be in brasil for coffee. after the last calibration round, an optional naturals cupping was on the program. only a few judges preferred to go back to the hotel in machado. the rest seemed to be thrilled about slurping some more into the afternoon.

calibrating the judges can be done in many ways - today we cupped the same table three times, evaluating after the first round, then the same order over again with no evaluation. the last flight was in revised order - in that way we are able to see how consistent we are as cuppers. it's exciting and interesting, and everyone seems pretty curious about how the others are calibrated. i love being able to spend a day of calibration - it's something i can never do at home. besides, i like feeling the group dynamics and i learned a few things already about how people perceive the score sheet. in my opinion, average coffees should not be scored 84 or above. that's for excellent coffees (and it IS entry level for coe)! but then again, being a cupper is realizing there are no right or wrong answers. just a lot of really good coffes that we have yet to taste.