Every time I take a sip of coffee, a story takes shape on my tongue. I can tell if it’s been a while since the coffee was brewed, for example, or if the recipe is off. (Flavors all jammed up and it coats my mouth instantly? Too much coffee. Thin texture and not much flavor at all, maybe just a papery aftertaste? Too much water). I can tell if the grind size was too small (concentrated flavors, overly bitter aftertaste, heavy weight on my tongue), or if it was too big (not balanced, flavors tipped towards sour). It’s obvious when the pot has been sitting on a burner for a while, like longer than five minutes or so, because the coffee starts to cook, and the acids change (chlorogenic acid degrades into quinic acid), resulting in a bitter, stale, sharp taste. (You know the one: greasy spoon diner coffee.) Maybe the green beans were top quality, and the coffee was great shortly after being roasted, but it was ground up a long time ago and all that lovely character has disappeared, dissolved into the atmosphere before making it into my cup, leaving just a memory of original nuance. Maybe those top-quality beans were even kept whole until brewing, but they were roasted a year ago and staled quickly because someone didn’t close the bag down tightly before shoving it to the back of the cupboard, and now I taste that stale cupboard air and some of the other dry goods and packaging from that same cupboard. And maybe the coffee was harvested and processed and roasted to an oily sheen and ground several years ago before being enclosed in an airtight foil brick, packed into a carton and then onto a pallet, and then stored in a dank warehouse until a distributor needed to fill a grocery shelf, and then Aunt Carol saw 100% Arabica, dark roast gourmet on sale and thought that sounds delicious and what a deal!

Knowing a lot about coffee has defined my professional life, leading me to relationships and travel opportunities around the world. Coffee as a livelihood has been a gift, a truly unexpected and super-fun journey for which I am so grateful. It has also come to mean that for me, a cup of coffee is never just a cup of coffee. Even when I simply need a caffeine delivery system (because yes, I am dependent on this drug, but hey, we all have our vices), it is incredibly difficult to set aside all the things I know and can recognize in that final coffee product and simply consume a cup. So when I’m traveling and don’t have access to high quality coffee every morning, sometimes I choke down a few ounces of dark, bitter liquid just to get the job done and avoid a headache.

It’s not always unpleasant, of course. As I write this, I’m sipping on a (now cold) mug from a specialty cafe in Antigua, Guatemala, where the menu offers cafe del dia (coffee of the day) for 15Q (roughly $2), brewed on a standard Bunn automatic drip machine into insulated carafes. When the barista served me, she emptied one carafe into my mug and topped it off with more from a second carafe, telling me that I was receiving a mix of older and fresher coffee. I squinted to read the small print on the bag on top of the machine, noticing that it was the Gesha variety, a highly prized plant known for its delicate flavors and distinct floral character. My first sip expressed the origins of this coffee, from its delicate fruity acidity to the floral aftertaste. Behind those lovely characteristics lurked evidence of the extra time that coffee spent sitting in a pot, a few lonely ounces in the bottom of a stainless carafe, oxidizing little by little as the rest of the volume was poured out, ultimately leaving my portion exposed to more and more air. I tasted a little bit of metal, a little bit of cardboard-y staleness. But overall, the more pleasant characteristics led the way, allowing me to truly enjoy every sip. As the liquid cooled, the acidity brightened, masking some of the less delicious notes, and I took my time with the last few ounces, stretching out the experience, quite possibly the best two-dollar cup of coffee I’ve ever had outside the comfort of my own home.

Some time ago I read an article by Morgan Eckroth, a somewhat-well-known coffee pro and competitive barista. They referenced an event they attended where James Hoffman (a prolific, even better-known famous-in-the-coffee-world YouTuber) was a speaker, and where he was asked if we had reached the end of the golden age in coffee, and he answered that yes, we have. The assault of climate change on specialty coffee, the ongoing coffee price crisis, a resistance of younger generations to take on the work of their family’s coffee farm–all very real challenges that I will not unpack in this blog today–these things have wreaked havoc on the future’s supply of high quality coffee. But don’t despair, he implied. Enjoy the coffee we have, because it’s precious. The coffee industry continues to evolve and adapt, and there are very smart people working towards solutions. We don’t know what coffee will look like in fifty years, or even twenty, but we can treat every cup as a story and a pleasure.

So I’m trying to shift my mindset. Am I a good taster? Yes. I’ve practiced and studied and calibrated to sensory references; these skills have led me around the world and to great adventures. But am I a coffee snob? I hope not. It may not be easy to revel in every sip, but I’m going to try.

--Jennifer

Jennifer Yeatts (she/her) is Director of the Higher Grounds Coffee Learning Lab. She has worked in specialty coffee for over 20 years, starting as a barista and growing into roles involving marketing, communications, quality control, inventory management, training, and public relations. Jennifer is an Authorized Specialty Coffee Association trainer and a licensed Q Grader.