12/10/2026
Put a 120-hour fermented excelsa next to a washed Colombian gesha, and the conversation stops being about flavor.
I’ve come to the realization that the absolute best way to end any coffee meeting is with a little cupping!We cupped a 120 hour fermented Vietnamese excelsa, a Mundo Novo nano lot from Brazil, a libex from Bukidnon, some Colombian gesihas roasted in New York, the fruitiest Philippine robustas, and a mango-cofermented excelsa from the national research centre of the Philippines.
I don’t often cup robustas beside arabicas. Neither would I typically assess a washed geisha beside a coferment. But cuppings with a diversity of species, processing, flavor, and origins always leads to the most thought-provoking conversations.
There was a mix of engineers, social scientists, extension workers, and biologists around today’s table. Naturally, the conversation moved from what we were tasting to the ‘why’ and the implications of it all.
Why are farmers producing such processes?
Who are the markets that are asking for ‘wild’ coffee species?
What do production costs look like across origins? Across processes?
How are the ways we process these coffees affecting our soil? The longevity of coffee production?
A cup tells you what a coffee tastes like, but it takes a room full of different disciplines to ask what that coffee costs the farmer, the land, and the future of the commodity.
I know the cupping table is meant to be the most objective place in specialty coffee. However, these days I’m leaving the cupping table with more exciting questions to discover…
Next time, I’m saving more time for the conversation after the cups are empty!
