The team at green coffee importer Coffee Shrub has introduced the next movement in cupping: hand feel.
“Relying on your taste buds can be problematic, at best,” says Coffee Shrub’s Dan Wood, adding, “In the past, hand-feel has been relegated an accidental spill and a burn or through the filter of a paper towel when you’re cleaning up a mess when you spill your coffee.” However, he says, “It’s surprising how much information you can actually parse out just by using your hands.”
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Says Coffee Shrub’s Thompson Owen, “This regressive aspect of hand-feel tasting — can we call it that? I don’t know what to call it — is really where this whole thing kind of comes together: mind, body, hand, coffee, hand.”
Released this past weekend, “Hand Cupping: New Ideas in Coffee” is 12-plus minutes of straight-faced irony for anyone who has ever cupped coffee.
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In the video, Owen admits to having not yet perfected the method, saying, “The problem is we still use a spoon because we haven’t figured out how to dispense the coffee directly to our hands yet.” He later adds, “The yolk of the spoon that has kept us in captivity as tasters, we’re trying to get away from that but we haven’t fully.”
You get the idea. Watch it here:
Nick Brown
Nick Brown is the editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine.
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This must be a joke!! I was waiting for them to fart in their hands and smell the aromas as a way to relate to the fragrance of their coffee.
I first thought this was real – I admit it. It also admit I really wasn’t paying close attention to what they were saying the first time I watched it. How could this happen? – I think it’s due to my habit of web surfing without allowing enough time to take in what’s being presented in front of me. How many people will confess they thought this what legit? At what point did you realize it was a ruse:
A) taste buds can be problematic at best (solution is to use your hands)?
B) the gritty motor oil containers on the taster’s shelf?
C) the attempt to determine the level of sweetness of coffee with your hands?
To me, this video went from being ridiculous to hilarious once I re-watched it and caught the clues.