Fickle Palate Archives: October 2007
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29 October 2007
A Whole World at your Lips: Tour the Coffee Regions of the World
Your coffee cup hosts traces of everything that its beans underwent in their entire little lives. So it stands to reason that the region of origin of your coffee has a profound effect on its characteristics. Factors such as soil type, amount and frequency of rainfall, presence or absence of mistiness and shade, proximity of [...]
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25 October 2007
Festive Nouveau Beaujolais
When the world of wine seems too heavy, stuffy, and complicated to be fun anymore, consider enjoying a light, lively bottle of festive Nouveau Beaujolais.Unlike so many other serious wines that require a great deal of aging and coddling, this sprightly wine is meant to be enjoyed soon after bottling. And it’s one of the [...]
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22 October 2007
Before the Pour: How Coffee is Grown and Harvested
How does your morning pick-me-up get to your cup? What happens between the growth of the coffee plant and your sips? Let’s explore the process of coffee-making at the macro level.
Coffee plants often start out interspersed with other crops such as corn or rice for a few years. Other times, as in some places in [...]
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18 October 2007
Name That Cup: Terms for Coffee Tasting
Although the terms may vary slightly in different cupping circles, cupping involves assessing coffee in four main categories: acidity (which does not refer to the pH of the coffee, as commonly construed), aroma, body and flavor. For enthusiasts, cupping may begin even before the grinding commences with observations of each type of coffee beans’ color [...]
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15 October 2007
Cup and Grind: Grind Your Way to the Perfect Brew
Unlike wine or other specialty beverages, coffee (even after it is purchased and taken home) gives consumers an array of choices in how to prepare the eventual cup. Although it’s impossible to improve mediocre – or worse – coffee by how you prepare it, different methods of brewing yield their own unique characteristics to what [...]
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11 October 2007
Big Legs
Sally was a Texan enjoying – enduring? – her first winter in a place where snow actually started falling around November. This was a first for her and she had wardrobe issues.
Texas, and Texans, are famous for big. Big state, big ranches, big cars, big hair, big attitudes, big oil wells in every big back [...]
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8 October 2007
Tasting Terms Turned Cupping Calls
As with wine-tasting, coffee cupping offers the unique opportunity not only to learn about the aromatic and gustatory variations of the beverage, but also to discover your own personal preferences. Of course, cupping poses none of the inebriation dangers of wine-tasting and there’s no age requirement to participate. Not to mention the fact that, once [...]
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4 October 2007
How to Select a Thanksgiving Wine
It’s almost that time again. Thanksgiving Day is perhaps the most important feast of the year. For many of us, it’s undoubtedly the biggest feast of the year, anyway.
The traditional Thanksgiving holiday is a time for food, fun and family. It’s also time for a typically familiar menu, too, with some dishes reserved for this [...]