BeantageSpecialty coffee, Bogotá
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Bogotá, Colombia

Learn to taste coffee in Bogotá, cup in hand

A private cupping, or a tour of three specialty coffee shops where we walk in as regular customers, with no booking ahead, to judge the service and the cup honestly. In Spanish, English, Portuguese or French.

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20 % off for groups of 4 to 8 people.

Six scenes from the book, from the cupping table to the mountains of Colombia. Scroll slowly: each one builds itself as you go.

1 of 6

Cupping is learning to name coffee

Cupping is a systematic way to taste coffee, designed so two people in different rooms can agree about the same cup. You smell the dry fragrance, break the crust to release the aroma, and slurp hard to feel acidity, body, sweetness and aftertaste. Every attribute is scored and compared.

On screen, a cupping table: the spoon comes down and breaks the crust of the third cup. Beside it, the descriptive assessment form of the SCA Coffee Value Assessment (2024), which replaced the 2004 cupping form.

From the book1/6

  1. 8.25 g of coffee per 150 mL of water
  2. Water at 93 to 96 °C
  3. Crust rests 4 minutes
  4. 80 points: specialty threshold
  5. More than 1,000 aromatic compounds
  6. 110 attributes in the sensory lexicon
A hand breaking the coffee crust with a cupping spoon in the third of four porcelain cups on a wooden table
3D render: cupping table

2 of 6

Two grinders, two ways to cut

Grinding multiplies the bean's surface and decides how even the extraction will be. The conical grinder faces two toothed cones, one fixed and one turning. The flat-burr grinder uses two facing discs. Neither dominates: conical tends toward rounder body, flat toward greater clarity.

On screen, two hand grinders, assembled and taken apart: the Comandante C40, with a conical burr, and the Pietro, with 58 mm flat burrs set vertically.

From the book2/6

  1. Conical: one fixed cone, one rotating
  2. Flat: two facing discs
  3. Conical: rounder body (tendency)
  4. Flat: greater clarity (tendency)
  5. From a few cm² to several m² of surface
Comandante C40 grinder with a brown glass jar and a black Pietro grinder on a wooden table
3D render: Comandante C40 and Pietro

3 of 6

One cherry, three processes, three cups

Parchment is the hard, bone-colored shell that protects each seed while it dries. The washed process removes the mucilage and gives bright acidity. Honey dries the bean with some mucilage left on, gaining body and sweetness. Natural dries the whole cherry and delivers intense fruit.

On screen, three open-air drying beds: washed, honey and natural, first in a side travelling shot and then up close.

From the book3/6

  1. Fermentation: under 48 hours
  2. Moisture when washed: 48 to 56 %
  3. Dry to 10 to 12 % (Cenicafé)
  4. Export standard: 8 to 12.5 %
  5. Washed: bright acidity, clean cup
  6. Honey: more body, marked sweetness
  7. Natural: heavy body, intense fruit
Three open-air drying beds: washed, honey and natural coffee
3D render: washed, honey and natural drying beds

4 of 6

Eight methods, one extraction

Water extracts acids first, then sweetness, and bitterness last. That is why the same coffee can taste sour or harsh. The book groups eight methods into three families: immersion (French press, siphon), drip (olleta, V60, Chemex) and pressure (espresso, moka pot, AeroPress).

From the book4/6

  1. Espresso: about 9 bar, 90 to 96 °C
  2. Espresso: 20 to 30 seconds
  3. Espresso patent: Turin, 1884
  4. AeroPress: Alan Adler, November 2005
  5. Reference ratio: about 55 g per liter
  6. V60: light body, very high clarity
  7. Chemex: medium body, high sweetness
Eight brewing methods, from the olleta to espresso
3D render: eight brewing methods

5 of 6

A thousand years of a traveling bean

Legend says the shepherd Kaldi watched his goats dance around the year 800. The documented story crosses Yemen, Mocha, Venice and the cafés of Paris and London. In 1723 a cutting reached Martinique, in 1727 Brazil, and then Colombia, where the Coffee Growers Federation was founded in 1927.

When did coffee reach Colombia? The book gives no single date: there are legends and a documentary trail whose oldest text is El Orinoco Ilustrado, by José Gumilla (1730).

From the book5/6

  1. Around the year 800: the Kaldi legend
  2. 865 to 925: Rhazes, first medical mention
  3. 1536: the Ottoman Empire occupies Yemen
  4. 1683: Venice's first "caffè"
  5. 1686: Café Procope in Paris
  6. 1723: cutting to Martinique
  7. 1927: Colombian Coffee Growers Federation founded
  8. 1938: Cenicafé created
Illustrated route of coffee from Ethiopia to Paris, 6th to 18th century
Illustration from the book

6 of 6

Varieties, defects and regions of Colombia

A variety is a flavor clue, not a promise. Colombia moved from Typica to Cenicafé 1 to resist rust, while the coffee borer still has no resistant variety. A single black bean can ruin a sample. Four regions, from Nariño to the Sierra Nevada, give distinct profiles: citrus, sweet, fruity or chocolatey.

From the book6/6

  1. Colombia 1982, Tabi 2002, Castillo 2005, Cenicafé 1 in 2016
  2. Cenicafé 1: 84.3 % Supremo-size beans
  3. Specialty: 0 primary and max 5 secondary defects per 350 g
  4. Borer: economic damage threshold, 5 %
  5. Rust in Colombia since 1983; CBD absent
  6. Four regions, more than twenty departments
  7. Arabica: 500 to 2,000 meters altitude
The three mountain ranges and the Sierra Nevada with cherries marking the coffee regions
Illustration from the book

The theory fits on a page. The flavor only fits in the cup.

Book the cupping or the tour and take the full book home.

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