Like most coffee drinkers, my morning cup of brew is the ritual that lures me out of bed.

Despite my best efforts to buy local, I’m a college student on a budget; my Keurig is the source of my daily cup, and I still occasionally find myself in the Dunkin’ drive-thru. 

Visitors sample different varietals at the coffee cupping event at Tandem Roasters in Portland on Aug. 1. (Photo courtesy of Amelia Alpren)

In an attempt to expand my coffee horizons, I stepped behind the scenes at Tandem Coffee Roasters in Portland at a public tasting event last weekend. 

I entered Tandem’s specialty facility tucked behind their East Bayside cafe scared of being judged by hipster coffee purists. Instead, Tandem’s coffee educator Josh Kinsman welcomed me and seven other eager caffeine fiends, ready to impart his hard-earned coffee wisdom.

Kinsman was our friendly guide for a tour and tasting of seven different brew samples. The standardized process is called “cupping,” which professionals use to evaluate coffee quality.

At the roastery, massive bags of coffee beans lined the shelves under the glimmer of a disco ball. “We like to have fun,” Kinsman said.

Fun indeed. Here, the extent of my coffee ignorance became increasingly apparent. It turns out, “beans” is a misnomer — the little green pebbles are actually seeds harvested from coffee cherries.

The journey of a Tandem roast begins long before the beans spend about 7 minutes in the production roaster. It all starts with a relationship with a farm or importer to purchase green coffee seeds. The seeds span multiple rounds of tests and iterations to achieve a quality roast.

“When we are roasting coffee, we take that mentality of trying to unlock the flavors that are naturally within that coffee without imparting too much of the flavor ourselves,” Kinsman said.

A glimpse behind the scenes at the roastery at Tandem Roasters. (Courtesy of Amelia Alpren)

Somewhat akin to a sommelier (but without the snoot and snobbery), Kinsman led the group through the cupping process, highlighting each producer and tasting note.

Tandem’s cupping procedure is precise: Exactly 11.5 grams of coffee are ground on a medium-fine setting directly into a bowl, yielding an array of six to seven coffees and two representations of each. Upon evaluating the fragrance of the grounds, hot water is added and the coffee is steeped for 4 to 5 minutes. After physically breaking up the crust that has formed on top of the cup, the coffee cools and any remaining sediment is removed. Finally, it’s time to slurp each brew with rounded spoons.

Yes, slurp. To fully distribute and aerate the taste of the coffee, it’s best to slurp, not sip.  

The process felt almost comical: The group paraded around the table in conga-line formation, slurping each brew in succession. I can only imagine how we looked to someone passing by the window.

The seven featured brews included coffees from Colombia, Ecuador, Kenya and Ethiopia, with tasting notes ranging from raspberry sorbet, to tamarind, to grilled pineapple. 

“When folks taste our coffees, it’s like, ‘Wow, there’s so many different flavors,’ and it could be more reminiscent of tea or it could be juicier than they imagined,” Kinsman said. 

After two trips around the table, I felt confident in the calibration of my taste buds to taste a difference between each cup. Although I am typically more partial to a darker roast and nutty flavors, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the bright, floral, almost tealike qualities of Tandem’s brews. 

“It’s cool to have folks who don’t really engage with light roast coffee a whole lot taste these coffees and be like, ‘Whoa, like I actually really like this.’” Kinsman said. “I hope after tasting these, they’ll look at coffee flavor in a different way.”

With all of the variables that impact the taste of coffee — including what plant varietal is grown where and at what elevation and how the beans are processed, roasted and brewed — I started to doubt if the perfect cup of coffee is even achievable. Kinsman said, though, the “perfect” coffee is in the eye of the beholder.

“For me, a perfect coffee is just as much situational and the story behind it and the flavors all coalescing into a really cool moment. I think that those moments are what the coffee community is all about,” Kinsman said.

Kinsman emphasized the importance of cultivating a strong coffee community in Portland, bolstered by events like public cuppings and public latte art competitions.

“As a coffee community,” Kinsman said, “we care about making the connection not only to just our customers, but making that connection from the customer to the café, from the café to the roastery, or from the roastery to the farmers and people who actually produce that coffee.”

Kinsman’s advice to a coffee beginner wanting to learn more? Talk to your barista. Try different coffees. Break out of what’s comfortable. If you end up at a coffee cupping like I did, slow down and appreciate the unique flavors of each brew.

“ Buy good coffee, buy local and know that coffee is expensive, but that’s because there’s a lot of hard work that goes into it,” Kinsman said. “If people visited a coffee farm, they would understand why good coffee is expensive. It’s a lot of work, a lot of care, a lot of love and a lot of hardworking people to make it happen.”

I left Tandem one step closer to becoming a coffee expert, ready to approach my next cup with mindfulness and appreciation for the journey of the seed. Although I’m unsure if I will be able to detect the tasting notes in my Keurig coffee, I’ll try my best.