Coffee Tastings

Three Region Blend coffee returns to Starbucks on May 1, 2012: Sneak preview coffee tasting.

by Melody on April 22, 2012

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Tonight (April 16, 2012) I went to a little coffee tasting for Starbucks Three Region Blend coffee.  I gained a new appreciation for this coffee.  I wasn’t feeling so excited about this blend until tonight’s event.  Honestly, I’d simply forgotten how good this coffee is.

Three Region Blend is a fully washed-processed coffee, and combines beans from Guatemala, Tanzania, and Papua New Guinea.  The coffee beans are all roasted together to make a perfect flavor – this is also known as a “pre-roast” blend,  when the blending occurs before the roasting process starts.  This coffee is actually the first coffee where Starbucks experimented with blending beans from all 3 growing regions.

I found a 2011 official blog post on this coffee here:

http://blogs.starbucks.com/blogs/customer/archive/2011/05/05/the-original-three-region-blend-is-back.aspx

This coffee was originally launched in 2010.  It works well iced or hot.  One thing I thought was interesting, tonight I learned that this coffee was launched with springtime in mind:  for these three regions, the coffee beans are best picked in the spring.

Tonight’s coffee tasting was held at the Olive Way Starbucks, and hosted by coffee master-in-training, Megan.  We started with a short activity of learning about how elevation affects the flavor of a bean.  We drew out the “Elevation Triangle” and so I snapped a photo of my neighbor’s triangle, which looked much better than mine (It is attached in the photos below).  The overwhelming majority of Starbucks coffees are sourced from high elevations, above 5,000 feet.  I learned that Kona is one of the few low elevation coffees sourced by Starbucks.

I also thought it was fun that we all got a Three Region Blend coffee stamp during our tasting.  We compared Three Region Blend to Guatemala Antigua and to Kenya, with the idea that it would be interesting to compare the blend with single-origin region offerings.  The Guatemala Antigua was universally popular, and had lots of smooth cocoa flavors, almost like Almond Roca.  The Three Region Blend was lighter-bodied, and had both a slight citrus bite to it, and lots of cocoa notes.  I noticed that the cocoa aroma from this coffee was quite strong.  One person felt like have Three Region Blend was like having a ‘whole piece of dark chocolate.’

The food pairing was the Starbucks Mediterranean flat bread which is considered an “elevated” offering and only available at a limited number of stores.  The idea was to bring out the savory notes with the flat bread.  Indeed, I was impressed and discovered that the savory notes of the Papua New Guinea do come out stronger when paired with this savory bread.

We had a lot of fun at this coffee tasting, and I definitely recommend that you get to an Olive Way coffee tasting!

The next one will be on April 30, 2012, and a coffee master will be walking us through the newest Reserve coffee offerings.  The Olive Way coffee tastings are every other Monday night at 6:00 p.m., and they are open to the public, and free to attend.  Please come join us there!

Olive Way Starbucks
1600 East Olive Way (Between East Summit and John Street)
Seattle, WA 98102
(206) 568 5185

Here are a few more photos:

 

By the way, for more blog articles on coffee tastings, click here.

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Tribute Blend 2012 is here: Fantastic coffee tasting at Starbucks Olive Way

by Melody on March 6, 2012

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Tribute Blend whole bean coffee officially returns to Starbucks‘ shelves on March 6, 2012.  It is back by popular demand!  This coffee was originally introduced one year ago to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Starbucks.

I went to a coffee tasting event at Olive Way for the return of this blend, and thought I would share a little bit from that event.  By the way, anyone can attend!  Please go!  It’s free.  Olive Way Starbucks does regular coffee tastings about every two weeks, on Monday nights.  Call ahead to confirm that there will be a  tasting.  Here’s the store address and phone number:

Olive Way Starbucks
1600 East Olive Way
Seattle, WA 98122
(206) 568 5185

Megan, a coffee master in training, put on tonight’s tasting event.  First, she began with a little education about this coffee.  Tribute Blend is a blend of four Starbucks coffees:  Aged Sumatra, Sun Dried Yirgacheffe,  Papua New Guinea, and Colombia.  It is a “post roast” blend which means that each coffee is roasted separately, and then the all of the beans are combined and mixed together after the roasting process.  One interesting thing that  I learned is that when Starbucks experimented with this as a pre-roast blend (which is more common) they decided that the Sun Dried Yirgacheffe dominated the flavors.

Megan is a fairly new-ish partner, and I loved her personal story about discovering Tribute Blend.  She said that when Tribute Blend was first launched, she was still a customer.  She went into a Starbucks and tried it, and definitely liked it.  Megan said that the very first pound of coffee she ever bought at Starbucks was Tribute Blend, and she bought the Tribute Blend that was offered in the coffee canister container last year.  I loved her story about discovering this coffee, and it seemed totally appropriate that she should lead tonight’s tasting.  She did an amazing job!

There were about 6 people present, and we were given maps, and colored in the four origin countries represented in Tribute Blend and the coffee growing belt.  My geography is terrible!  Mickey, (aka “Mr. Opportunity”) did a perfect job with his map, so I took a picture of his, not mine!

Megan started out with passing around some of the Tribute beans, so we could all smell and look at them.  I noticed a lot of nutty aromas from the whole beans:

Megan paired a butter croissant with a cherry preserves (which came from Safeway) with the Tribute Blend.  It was such an incredible pairing!  The cherry jam was quite sweet and did a lot to make the Sun Dried Yirgacheffe component of this coffee pop.  I also thought it was remarkable how well the basic butter croissant worked, which brought out the slightly more savory components of the coffee.  By the way, we also tried the new Chocolate Covered Cranberries with Tribute Blend too, and that was delicious.  I want to shine a spot light on these little packages of Chocolate Covered Cranberries:  They are phenomenally good.

Several people in our little tasting group thought that the Tribute Blend was just a little spicier than last year’s.  No coffee is ever exactly the same twice (since it is a food product), and although it is just a shade spicier, it is still a really delicious coffee and does taste very close to last year’s.  One partner commented that he had already tried it iced, and said that it works extremely well as an iced coffee from the Clover.

Thank you Olive Way for a great coffee tasting!

So who else is looking forward to this coffee being back?  How is Tribute 2012 launch day doing at your store?  And is your store doing any coffee tastings with Tribute?

Here are just a few more photos from tonight’s coffee tasting.  I hope you enjoy!

(I took all photos on Monday, March 5, 2012)

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Starbucks Colombia Coffee and Colombia Via: Taste and Compare

by Melody on February 26, 2012

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Today (2-26-2012) I dropped by the Starbucks at Fourth and Union in downtown Seattle and hoped to be able to do a quick coffee tasting.  This was spontaneous.  I didn’t know who would be working and I didn’t know if they’d be too busy.

A little over one week ago, a partner in Canada (who had just been on a vacation to Mexico) mailed me a bag of Starbucks Colombia whole bean coffee.  I drooled when I got it.  Colombia is still a core coffee in a number of the international Starbucks markets.  Since I had never had the opportunity to taste and compare Colombia Via side by side with Colombia whole bean core coffee, I thought that might work as a quick and fun coffee tasting.

Three partners were there working on this Sunday morning Starbucks visit:  Helen, Aaron, and Jenny were all very interested in trying a quick coffee tasting.  It was a Sunday morning, and luckily, I seemed to time this with a slower moment in the store.  Aaron told me that he wants to start his coffee master training, and that he is really interested in getting more coffee tasting experience.  He made a French press of the Colombia and prepared everything.

I have to say we loved the Colombia whole bean coffee.  Aaron and I were totally impressed with the beautiful nutty flavor, and the smooth texture, and light cocoa notes too.  This is a near perfect cup of coffee.  Aaron commented that he liked it just slightly better than the Guatamela Antigua which had been a favorite core coffee of his.

The Colombia Via Ready Brew was also quite good, and held its own quite well.  I could detect some nuttiness to it, though it lacked the beautiful aroma found in the whole bean version.  Suddenly I did appreciate the Colombia Via more than I had before, and bought a pack of it to take home.  Although I like darker coffees, I really do enjoy a nice ‘medium’ roast too, and the Colombia is definitely that.

Aaron and I chatted about tastings a bit, and I decided that I would do a roundup of numerous previous coffee tasting articles on this blog to make them a little easier to find.  Here you go:

  • The Roast You Love the Most media event – (Food pairing) This was a coffee tasting that I went to at Olive Way Starbucks, and it was produced by Olive Way and the Starbucks PR department.  I was there with a number of other local bloggers.  This was a superbly well thought out coffee tasting of Veranda, Pike Place Roast, and Italian.  Anton at Olive Way is really good at putting on highly professional coffee events!
  • Ethiopia Hararr, Aged Sumatra, and more – (Food pairing) This was one of the regularly scheduled Olive Way coffee tasting events.  This again was an extremely professional, well thought out coffee tasting.  The Hararr was paired with the raisins from the Perfect Oatmeal, and that turned out to be a superb choice.  I hope you’ll read this one too!
  • The “butter” coffee tasting: Anniversary Blend - (Food pairing) This was a unique opportunity to try Anniversary Blend with some butter.  It really demonstrates some unusual things you can do to learn about, and try coffee. Mikey (also known as “Mr. Opportunity” – Just look at the window cling) put on a world-class tasting.
  • Sumatra Tapanuli and Rwanda Gakenke - (Taste and Compare – No food) At this Olive Way Starbucks event, coffee masters from the corporate headquarters hosted a special coffee tasting of new Reserve coffee offerings.  (Actually, all the food at this event was provided after we tried the coffees, as to not interfere with the comparison of the coffees.)
  • A barista earns her black apron – Christmas Blend, Pike Place Roast, and two Reserve coffees – (Food pairing) This was a coffee tasting event at the 6th and Union Starbucks (in downtown Seattle) produced by a barista earning her black apron.  It was a really fun event featuring four coffees, and especially great to see a partner given her black apron!
  • Casi Cielo coffee tasting at Olive Way – (Food pairing) This was one of the regularly scheduled Olive Way coffee tasting events.  Absolutely wonderful food pairings with Casi Cielo.  This store really has a knack for professional coffee events.
  • Bali Blend and core Starbucks Sumatra coffee – (Taste and compare) This was another one of my spontaneous moments where I dropped by my neighborhood Starbucks (7th and Pike), and wondered if the partners wanted to try one of the rare international coffees – Bali Blend.  This was a very classic, “taste and compare” style event, and we compared Bali Blend with the core Sumatra coffee at Starbucks.  Really a fantastic fun quick tasting.
  • Coffee tasting: Cupping Mexico blend – (Cupping) Mexico Blend is one of the international Starbucks coffee, and at this event we did a traditional “cupping” which is the coffee tasting method used by roasters to check for coffee quality.  It’s actually difficult to find a cupping at a Starbucks because most stores are not set up to do them.  Although this is a very old blog article, I thought I’d shine a spotlight on it too.
  • Galapogas Island Roasting event – This was not a coffee tasting really, but I wanted to mention this too.  There are regular roasting events at the Starbucks headquarters, and this was one of the very few times that I had the chance to go to one.  It was just a heck of a lot of fun, and something that I still look back very fondly on, and thankful that I had this opportunity.
  • Three Region Blend and plums – (Food pairing)  I asked two coffee masters at the First and Pike Starbucks to help me out in figuring out a way to feature Three Region Blend in a coffee tasting.  This is a really old blog post, and those partners aren’t even at that store anymore (I think they’re both still partners, just at different stores) but what they came up with was an incredibly superb selection of foods that highlight the best flavors of Three Region Blend.  Those two partners (Heidi and Jeremy) are true lovers of the bean, and have a natural knack for coffee tastings.
  • Sumatra Lake Toba – (Cupping) – A quick cupping event at 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea Starbucks featuring Sumatra Lake Toba coffee.
  • Organic Blue Java and a donut – (Food pairing) – This was an incredibly fast coffee tasting of Blue Java with a donut.  I just dropped by the First and Pike Starbucks, and caught up with Emily who radiates tons of passion for Starbucks.  She’s still a partner, just a different store now.  This is a really old blog post, but it shows how you can do a coffee tasting on the fly!
  • Breakfast Blend Via compared with Breakfast Blend whole bean – (Cupping) – I dropped by 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea Starbucks, which in the past has had regularly scheduled coffee events.  I suggested the idea of comparing a Via with its whole bean counterpart, and Amanda (who is an incredibly knowledgeable barista, and since then has been promoted in the headquarters) ran with the idea, and she set up this cupping.

There are more coffee tastings on this blog, but I think I’ll stop right there.  By the way, I mentally categorize coffee events into three categories: Cuppings, Food Pairings, and Taste and Compare.  This is NOT an official Starbucks categorization, but it seems to work for me to describe the most common ways to learn about coffee.  And, I am of the opinion that to learn the most about coffee, one should experience all three of these.

I am having some computer problems at the moment, and so I’m just using whatever computer I can right now.  I took these photos (from today’s Colombia tasting) on my phone on a low resolution setting so that I wouldn’t have to use a photo editor to re-size them.  Sorry that they’re not great quality.

Thank you again Aaron and everyone at the Fourth and Union Starbucks for a great quick tasting!

~Melody

(Edit:  After I wrote this article, I realized that some U.S. grocery stores sell Starbucks Colombia coffee!  That is a great find in the grocery store!)

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“The Roast You Love The Most” coffee tastings coming to Starbucks near you (Jan., 12th – 14th)

by Melody on January 11, 2012

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Something blonde is here at Starbucks.  Yesterday, I shared a few tweets from my twitter followers about trying the Blonde Roast coffees for the first time.  Today, we are talking about coffee  tasting experiences.  Starbucks will be doing tastings in their stores nationwide (United States) on January 12, 13, and 14th, and it’s dubbed something like, “Find the Roast You Love the Most.”  Today, I got a preview of this experience at a ‘media outreach’ event held at the Olive Way Starbucks. So if you are at Starbucks this Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, you should be able to find a coffee tasting event.  You should absolutely call your store in advance and find out exactly when their event is to be held:  My understanding is that each store has a few designated hours during the day for the coffee tastings.

Thank you partner-Anton Coleman for a great event!  Anton is an expert at coffee tastings, and this blog saw him in action in an event for the Ethiopia Hararr Reserve coffee.

For today’s event the pairings were as follows:

  • Veranda Blend – Vanilla Mini Scone
  • Pike Place Roast – Bagel with cream cheese
  • Italian Roast – The Chicken Sausage Breakfast Wrap

I was very impressed with the pairing selections.  I don’t think I’d ever realized before how perfectly Pike Place Roast (it is not called “Pike’s.” There is no “S.”) pairs with bread.  This is still not a favorite coffee of mine, but I genuinely did think that the bagel paired beautifully with the Pike Place Roast.  The spicy flavors in the Chicken Sausage Breakfast Wrap worked beautifully with the Italian Roast.  One person in our group thought the creaminess of the cream cheese paired well with Italian Roast.  And I thought that the mini vanilla scone was a great choice to go with Veranda.  I think it will be interesting to see what other things partners decide to pair with the Blonde Roasts.  The iced lemon loaf might be great with Willow Blend.

 

So here we are at the tasting, just getting started.  Anton is talking about the various coffee flavor profiles:

There were about six people in our small group, and we passed an open bag of Veranda around so everyone could smell the beans.  Anton made the comment that he was smelling the aroma of peanut butter.  The power of suggestion at work:  after that I could only smell peanut butter from the bag of Veranda.  I thought it was pretty fun that the team at Olive Way managed to get some unroasted coffee beans for us to look at:

As I already mentioned, the three coffees featured at this event were Veranda Blend, Pike Place Roast, and Italian Roast.  One person in our group noticed that the three bags of coffee are different sizes, yet are all one pound.  You can kind of see what I mean in this photo here:

Anton did a great job answering the question why the three bags of coffee are all different sizes.  The intense heat of the coffee roasting process triggers a complex chemical reaction within the coffee bean.  The starches in the bean begin to turn to sugars, and the heating of the bean facilitates the release of the caffeol (or coffee oil).  This release of oils explains some of the shiny-ness that is commonly found with the darker roast profile beans such as Espresso Roast, or Verona.  Because of these chemical reactions, at the end of the roasting process the darker roast beans retain a little less water than a light roast bean that hasn’t been subjected to much of this caramelization.  In the end, the darker roast beans weigh a little less than lighter roast beans because of the loss of starches and waters.  It simply takes more beans to make a pound of them because each bean weighs a little less than its very light roast counterpart.  More beans equal a little larger bag!

So here we are a little further along in the coffee tasting event:

I always love a good coffee tasting, and this was superbly done.  I hope that my readers get to try some of these pairings too.  All of the participants at this event were journalists and bloggers with various websites.  I sat near Keren Brown, who produces the Frantic Foodie website.  I immediately recognized the name of her site because it’s a large and popular food blog here in Seattle.  If you’re looking for a foodie website in Seattle, I recommend Keren’s blog.

The FTC requires disclosure of any consideration in connection with a blog article.  Starbucks provided some food and coffee (and I got a free coffee mug too) and other consideration during this event.  However, the opinions in this blog article are still my own. Heck, nothing is going to make me fall in love with Pike Place Roast!  And I will still prefer the bold coffees (and some of the mediums too) over the lighter roasts.  Having said that, this is a very exciting time for Starbucks.  I do think that launching the blonde roasts makes good sense as a natural extension of the coffee roasting expertise that Starbucks has developed over four decades.  I have heard that Starbucks coffee blending masters tested over 80 recipes and variations before selecting the winning recipes for Willow and Veranda.  Starbucks states that about 40% of customers want a lighter coffee option, and so it makes great sense to draw those customers to these two blonde roast blends.

Thank you again Anton and the team at Olive Way for a fabulous event.  If you like reading about coffee tastings, I suggest going back and looking at previous blog posts such as The Butter Coffee Tasting (Anniversary Blend);  A coffee tasting of Sumatra Tapanuli and Rwanda Gakenke;  The coffee tasting for a partner to earn her black apron – fabulous tasting including Christmas Blend at the 6th and Union Starbucks; and lastly, it’s always good to read about coffee cuppings which are a unique variation on traditional tastings and do not normally involve food.

 

 

 

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A coffee event with Starbucks Cheesecake, Brown Butter Apple Tart, Ethiopia Harrar, and Aged Sumatra and more … all available at the elevated beer and wine stores.

November 22, 2011

The Olive Way Starbucks in Seattle held a dynamic coffee tasting this evening:  It was another world-class event.  The three coffees featured at this event were Starbucks Ethiopia Harrar, Aged Sumatra Lot 593, and Guatemala Antigua Santa Catalina.  The food pairings included the Starbucks “elevated food menu” offerings of New York Cheesecake, Brown Butter Apple [...]

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Tanzania coffee and Starbucks and Origin Trips

September 17, 2011

In the United Kingdom, Starbucks offers a “Tanzania” coffee.  This wonderful offering is a seasonal coffee that comes back regularly to the UK Starbucks market.  I actually had a bag of it about one year ago too.  It is washed-processed with a big juicy flavor, and a light lemony acidity.  I owe a big thank [...]

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The butter coffee tasting: Starbucks Anniversary Blend

September 13, 2011
Thumbnail image for The butter coffee tasting: Starbucks Anniversary Blend

Mikey, aka “Mr. Opportunity*,” hosted a fabulous coffee tasting at the Olive Way Starbucks tonight.  I attended, along with a large crowd of nearly a dozen people, some partners, some not.  Mikey made a couple of French presses of Anniversary Blend, and prepared a guided tasting note sheet.  We walked through the traditional four steps [...]

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A coffee tasting of the new Starbucks Reserve coffees (Sumatra Tapanuli & Rwanda Gakenke), coming soon May 3, 2011

April 26, 2011

Today (4-25-2011) I went to a coffee tasting hosted by Jason Simpson and Leslie Wolford of the Starbucks headquarters coffee department, and Monica a partner at the Olive Way store.  The event was held at the newly-remodeled Olive Way Starbucks and showcased the two new Reserve coffees which arrive in stores on May 3, 2011:  [...]

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A coffee cupping at Roy Street Coffee and Tea. @RoyStCoffee @Starbucks @15thAveCoffee

November 17, 2010

It has been a long time since I’ve talked about coffee cuppings on this blog so I thought I would come back to the topic again. There are two unique coffeehouses which are totally operated by Starbucks, feature Starbucks coffee, but are not called Starbucks. The two stores are Roy Street Coffee and Tea and [...]

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The combo cupping: Tea and Coffee; Warmth and fun

April 4, 2010

This blog post is a mixed-bag of things. It’s a tea cupping (I don’t think I’ve ever talked about a tea cupping before, though I talk about coffee cuppings all the time.) It’s about the very limited small cooperative Rwanda Fair Trade Starbucks coffee available in the UK, Ireland, and Middle East (this is not [...]

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