You've probably heard of TED, the fairly exclusive yearly conference focused on new and innovative ideas in technology, entertainment, and design. Since last year, the budding effort known as Coffee Common has been brewing coffee for TED attendees, not only as an inter-talk refreshment, but as another source of new and innovative ideas.

Coffee Common is an effort that falls under the umbrella of Common, a community created in part by Alex Bogusky (the B in CP+B), to unite those who wish to create social change. Given the mission of Common, it makes sense that Coffee Common would extend those ideals to the world of coffee, and as such they endeavor to educate the masses on what goes into a cup of coffee, from bean to cup, as it were. Beyond teaching how to pour water over grounds, they tell the story coffees have to offer, including the farmers who grow and process the raw materials, and how specialty coffee producers help to support them. I posted some videos from Coffee Common's NYC pop-up last month, but I didn't quite go into detail about their mission. If you bothered to check those videos out at all, you can tell that the people behind Coffee Common are not only passionate about coffee and educating consumers about the craft, but they're passionate about taking care of the people who make an often meager living off of cultivating the crops. They make such deep and important issues like this approachable, though: nobody likes being preached to about something, unless they're actually interested. It's more important first to allow newcomers to experience a whole different world of coffee than they may be used to, and use that hook to engage their curiosity.

Back in Black: Why You Should Taste Your Coffee With and Without Milk and Sugar

Posted by Erin Meister, January 30, 2012 at 7:45 AM

The author, brewing coffee for the masses. [Photograph: coffeecommon on Flickr]

Are you a condiment zombie? Many of us are, after enduring practically a lifetime's worth of crappy coffee in diners, at airports, and from the corner deli. Certainly the burnt-popcorn flavor of those subpar cups can be made exponentially more drinkable after the addition of milk and sugar.

But is all coffee thus improved? There's only really one sure way to find out: Taste, taste, taste.

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to participate in the inaugural Coffee Common NYC. (What's Coffee Common, you ask? Why, you can read about it here.) As one of the baristas on hand, I was tasked with walking folks through a particular flavor experience: We brewed and tasted a pair of coffees both black and, afterward, with added sugar and milk. One cup was a "commodity" grade coffee (Read: cheap, ubiquitous, caffeine-delivery-system stuff); the other a hand-crafted single origin Guatemalan bean roasted by Portland, OR's Heart.

When asked what they thought of the cheapo version, most folks remarked on its "bitterness," "tar flavor" and even simply calling it "gross." But after we sweetened and softened it up with whole milk and cane sugar, it became a different experience. "Oh, I've had this coffee a million times," one girl said. "This is basically what got me through college."

Upon tasting the Heart coffee in its unadulterated black form, however, the responses were startling: "Oh wow," one man said. "I haven't tasted black coffee in ten years, but this is great!" The fruit-like sparkle shone through to everyone who tasted it, utterly unanimously. "The only way I know how to really describe this is 'fresh,'" another taster offered.

When put to the milk-and-sugar test, however, most found the mug's specialness "muted" or "dulled," and that it didn't taste much different from the doctored cup of commodity-grade coffee we had to start.

[Photograph: coffeecommon on Flickr]

So, what's the point? Many of us are so used to mindlessly wandering over to the condiment bar with our steaming cup of coffee and trying to match some kind of specific shade of taupe we've been drinking for years without even sipping the naked brew—mostly because we've always been better acquainted with that terrible diner sludge, and it's vastly bettered with the help.

But what if more of the coffee we drank was special, with a natural sweetness and a sparkle of its own without milk and sugar? And what if we continued just zombie-walking our way over to the half-and-half and never knew how good the stuff could be on its own?

Think of it this way: A cheap wine can easily be made more drinkable by turning it into sangria, but an exceptionally fine wine will never be improved by adding sugar, fruit, and brandy. So taste your wine before you throw in those orange slices, and maybe taste your coffee before you start scooping in the granulated stuff: You might just find it doesn't need the help.

About the author: Erin Meister trains baristas and inspires coffee-driven people for Counter Culture Coffee. She's a confident barista and an audacious eater, but she remains a Nervous Cook.

One of the reason I wanted to attend Coffee Common here in New York was for the learning aspect. I’m not a coffee freak. I don’t roast, grind or treat my coffee making process like it’s a science experiment and it’s not that I thought less of people that do but I was merely oblivious to all the other brewing methods that existed, so it was easy to characterize anything unfamiliar as weird.

To give you a quick overview of what the 3-day event was about, "Coffee Common brought together world-class baristas and roasters with shared values, to create unique experiences that introduced people to the nuanced joys of exceptional coffee".

I spent the first 45 minutes walking around tasting and being schooled and I dedicated the second half of my stay to photographing.

Aside from the $5 entry fee, all you needed to participate was to grab an empty tasting cup at the entrance and the ability to forget everything you knew about coffee and ask questions as if you knew nothing.

Funny enough, prior to visiting, the last couple of days had been pretty intense as I voluntarily filled my head with constant knowledge that quickly began obliterating the off the mark perception I’ve had about how this warm beverage should be enjoyed.

It’s all really a matter of preference. There’s no right or wrong way on how to enjoy coffee but there’s an awareness that develops once you’ve been clued into the various processes, purposes, results and everything in between about how coffee actually taste like once you eliminate everything we’ve been taught to put into it.

Growing up, all I ever knew about coffee was that it bared an unpleasant taste up until the point where you saturate it with milk and sugar. Almost everyone describes themselves a coffee lover but after today, I can’t help wonder if they really know what it takes to be called a “real coffee lover”.

I’m the typical person that would drink a cup of joe without having the slightest capability to distinguish between good coffee and a watery drink and I believe that’s mainly because taste has always been secondary.

Coffee for me has always served 2 purposes: To plunge my favorite gingerbread cookies in and to keep myself warm when I’ve been out in the cold too long. That’s it. It’s mostly through Shawn that I’ve learned about specialty coffee and thought less about commodity coffee such as the one we all buy at Dunkin Donuts or at the corner store.

Because of the lack of knowledge, I’m probably the last person to ask advice about making a good cup of coffee but I’ve learned that once you find yourself in a room with people that at least have an interest to want to know more about this beverage, it’s almost impossible not to feel that tasting unfamiliar coffee requires a little intellectual engagement about how great it is in comparison to the crap we’ve been drinking all along.

I tasted Colombian, Guatemalan and Bolivian coffee and following some light conversation with the baristas that had prepared them, I realized that a true coffee lover is that person who’s fully aware of the genuine taste of coffee beans and can effectively describe it’s bitterness, it’s acidity and any other foreign characteristic it may have. I learned today that I shouldn’t be afraid of adding cream to my coffee because doing so will not alter the original taste of the coffee bean.

Regardless of where I may have purchased it, it’s no wonder every single cup of coffee I’ve had has always tasted the same to me. It’s because I haven’t been tasting the coffee per say. It’s been the sugary milk that’s kept me coming back all this time.

And one more... This one is long, but full of great information. Some is a little more geared toward industry practices, but the discussion on origin transparency is something the specialty coffee industry is struggling with right now, not only in meeting customer demand, but also in resolving the issue of "conflict coffee."

The Glutton may not always be the first reporter on the scene, but our faithful followers sometimes get the news just in time...as this four-day event is going on for ONE MORE DAY (through Sunday January 22) if you want to get out of the snow and taste some great coffee.  COFFEE COMMON, a collective of coffee brands is hosting a startup store/Google+ hangout event in which roasters and baristas come together to spread awareness about the joy and accessibility of responsibly sourced and properly prepared coffee.  Five dollars gets you admission to the event, a bottle of Poland Spring Water, and the ability to taste coffee from five of America's best producers.

Perennial BROOKLYN GLUTTON favorites were the mainstay of the event.  Chicago based INTELLIGENTSIA, along with COUNTER CULTURE from Durham, North Carolina and hometown hero, Ithaca, NY based GIMME! COFFEE, each had a featured roast for tasting.  This event also introduced us to a couple of coffee roasters that we had never tried before.  RITUAL from San Francisco has been around since 2005, but HEART from Portland, OR is new on the scene, having started up only three years ago. Each roaster presents a coffee sourced from a different place of origin, covering Bolivia, Ethiopia, Honduras, Colombia, and Guatemala, respectively.  Comparative pour over methods are used at multiple brew bars, one of which features a demonstration designed to illustrate how our tendency to improve the taste of commodity grade coffee by adding milk and sugar is not always necessary when the coffee is made from higher quality beans.

The featured coffees are also for sale, with the best value being COUNTER CULTURE'S Ethiopian Haru from Yirgacheffe at $13 for a 12oz bag, one of our favorite coffees of the day.  Also for sale are various pour over systems, water kettles, electric boilers, scales, grinders, and a Breville double boiler espresso machine.  Conspicuously absent from the collective is BLUE BOTTLE, the roaster we love to hate.  While no one really wants to say it out loud, the sense we get is that there is very little love for the San Francisco and Brooklyn based roasters among their peers, and it is certainly no secret that we have always found them to be pretentious and their coffee inferior.  Blue Bottle was definitely not missed at this event, and their absence only reaffirmed our opinion of them. 

The curators of this event, who are theoretically competitors in the coffee marketplace really did an excellent job of presenting a diverse array of high quality coffee products, and they were also available to discuss anything and everything related to coffee in a straightforward, friendly, and unpretentious way.  Their entire point is that people who are discerning about food, and particularly wine and spirits, should approach coffee in the same way.  Relative to alcoholic beverages, the cost of an exceptionally good cup of coffee is very low, and unlike wine, good coffee does not cost much more than bad coffee or mediocre coffee.  COFFEE COMMON also aims to raise awareness about coffee's uniqueness in that one who prepares a cup of coffee has a great deal of control over how it tastes by the choices that are made in its preparation. The coarseness of the grind and the selected brewing method dictates the speed at which the water passes through the coffee and how much surface area it comes in contact with, resulting in the ability to control the flavor by manipulating these variables.  Once the coffee is made, milk and sugar can then be added to adjust the flavor even further. The versatility and control that we have over the preparation of the beverage combined with its relatively low cost and the frequency with which most of us consume it make it something we should try to find the best quality version of that we can obtain, if we generally care about such things...which you undoubtedly do if you are reading this.