Meandering on the Way — December 9-13, 2022

Friday, December 9, 2022

After lunch today J and R joined us in our first adventure with “cupping” at Margins coffee in Albany. Our host was Margins owner and roast master David, a thirty-something former chemistry teacher who seems to be really enjoying this coffee thing. He had five coffees for us to sample. Three were from Ethiopia, one was from Honduras, and one was from Indonesia (Sumatra). The photo above shows a cup of Taro, which comes from Ethiopia and which is dried via a natural process. More on that later.

Our host brewed the coffee very simply by putting grounds into the bottom of a cup, filling the cup with hot water, and waiting several minutes for the grounds to settle out. He then used a shallow spoon to skim off the coffee foam or crema. The result of this process was a thin liquid that was quite flavorful but not very strong. 

When the five sample cups were ready, David gave each of us a spoon and a tasting glass and then demonstrated how to use them. First you dip your spoon into one of the sample cups and transfer about a teaspoon of the brew to your glass. Then you have to slurp up the whole sample, trying to spray it into all parts of your mouth. Before demonstrating that part, David warned us that cupping is a noisy process.

During and after the tasting, David also talked about some of the many factors that affect coffee flavor. Different varieties of coffee plants, differing soil types and differing climate all have their effects. He also mentioned that there are two main methods of coffee processing: natural drying and wet drying. Coffee beans, we learned, are the core or pit of coffee fruit. The whole fruit is called a coffee cherry. In a natural drying process, fresh picked coffee cherries are spread out onto concrete or onto drying tables and left in the sun to dry. They need to be raked constantly so as to prevent rot and assure uniform drying. Once the cherries are fully dry, the outer skin and fruit are separated from the coffee beans inside. The wet process is more complex. First the coffee cherries go through a depulper, which removes the outer skin of the cherry, but leaves some of the underlying fruit still covering the bean. This remaining fruit material is called mucilage. The mucilage-covered beans then rest for a day or two during which time the mucilage starts to ferment–which releases sugar– and some of this sugar is absorbed by the beans. After two days, the rest of the mucilage is washed off. The beans must then be dried, either in the sun or by mechanical means. 

And of course roasting also has a great deal to do with flavor. So how do coffee roasters like David know which coffee will respond best to various kinds of roasting? The answer is that they don’t really know until they try. David performs cupping sessions every Friday and visitors are welcome, but even if no one shows up to watch, David does the cupping anyway. His purpose is to sample the beans that he has roasted earlier in the week to see how they’ve come out. We noticed him taking notes. Was he carefully writing down how each of us responded to each sample? Nah. People who are passionate about what they’re doing don’t bother with focus groups. He was making notes about what he tasted. It was great talking to him. Good company and a bit of caffeine. We all came away in good spirits.

Sunday, December 11, 2022

Wow. Quite a bit of sunshine today. There’s a big winter storm system in the news, but it’s passing a hundred miles or so to the south of us. 

Monday, December 12, 2022

As was expected by almost everyone, the implementation of Oregon’s new gun law has been idelayed, as there have been a number of legal challenges. The measure bars the sale of ammunition magazines larger than 10 rounds, requires purchasers to undergo firearms training, and requires that a background check be fully complete before a gun transfer can proceed. (This last provision closes a major loophole in the existing federal law regarding background checks.) The law is the result of an initiative measure that passed by a very narrow margin: 50.6% to 49.4%. The new law is opposed by many police and sheriff departments, partly because it charges them with the task of conducting the training and maintaining the records without providing any resources to support it. The legal challenges, however, are focused on the first provision, and claim simply that a limit on magazine size violates the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. 

The magazine capacity limit applies to new civilian purchases only. Military and police are exempted as are current owners of large magazines. This did not prevent one Oregon county sheriff from releasing a statement saying that if the law is implemented “we will be helpless to defend ourselves.” The position of the Meandering on the Way (MOTW) editorial board on this issue is that almost all of us feel that way once in a while. 

Tuesday, December 13, 2022

Another great weather day and also the day when we finally got the drawer pulls for our bathroom cabinet. Whoopee. This makes the cabinet fully useable and marks the next to the last step in the completion of the bathroom remodel. The last step will be installing glass panels instead of a shower curtain around the shower.