Today's day off was punctuated with a good tour and cupping at the George Howell Coffee Company in Acton, MA. We've been serving George Howell's Terroir coffee since the beginning of the Ride Studio Cafe due to its high quality and local presence so it was about time that we saw George Howell and the George Howell family (employees all seem to have longevity here, so not only is it a family business, but the employees appear to have become family, too). We've met many of the people of George Howell and are very fortunate to have a GH employee on staff at the RSC (Sal), so we have been fortunate to build a solid relationship with them over the past 2 1/2 years. Seeing them at home in their test kitchen and in their environment helped put their coffee in context and a new light.
We saw green beans being turned into coffee beans and then got to taste nine different coffees next to each other: from sumatra (wet climate & low elevation yielding earthy flavors) to the Lenana, the highest in elevation (~5000 ft), fruity: ripe blackberry in this case.
I enjoyed hearing what George Howell had to say about each coffee as we were tasting - he didn't hold back his opinion about each and seemed particularly fair in discussing the coffee other very well-known companies serve.
People would love to learn coffee from this perspective - I'm hoping we'll get to do more with GH at the RSC where it comes to cuppings and brewing methods.
Just another day "off." I really need to take off the barista hat and re-enter bike land before the off-season is officially upon us.
No comments:
Post a Comment