Coffee Cupping Session Reveals Everyone Just Tastes 'Coffee'

A public coffee cupping session hosted by a specialty roaster ended with the facilitator quietly questioning his career after twelve participants independently described four distinctly different coffees using the same word: "good." The session, held at Origin Stories Roastery, featured coffees from Kenya, Colombia, Indonesia, and Ethiopia, each selected for dramatically different flavor profiles. Facilitator James Bloom spent forty-five minutes explaining the tasting wheel, demonstrating proper slurping technique, and describing the expected flavor differences. "The Kenyan has bright, almost citric acidity with blackcurrant notes," Bloom explained. "The Sumatran is earthy, heavy-bodied, with tobacco and dark chocolate." Participants nodded thoughtfully, slurped with enthusiasm, and then wrote their tasting notes. Kenyan AA: "Good. Coffee taste. Liked it." Colombian Supremo: "Nice. Smooth. Good." Sumatran Mandheling: "Good. Strong maybe? Good." Ethiopian Yirgacheffe: "Good. Different. Still good." "Different," Bloom repeated, reading the notes. "That's the most specific feedback I received. One person wrote 'different' about the Ethiopian. That's technically correct. It is different. They're all different. That's why we're here." One participant, a retiree named Howard, provided the session's most detailed tasting note: "This one tastes like the one from before but slightly less." Bloom has framed this note and hung it in the roastery. Despite the uniformity of feedback, all twelve participants rated the experience five stars and said they would attend again, suggesting that the value of cupping sessions may lie less in palate development and more in the social performance of appearing to develop one.