If you are not in the known already, we have been running public cupping sessions for the general public on every last Saturday of the month (unless otherwise stated). The venue rotates around the three shops, giving equal opportunities and convenience for our regulars, fans and friends around the island to register and experience at least once, what cupping is all about.

Before we go further in sharing,  here is a funny incidence that happened in the past when we were hosting one of our first few rounds of the cupping session - a senior age gentleman actually approached one of us and asking when the 'cupping' session will start and when we mentioned that we are still waiting for many others, he got shocked and asked again if we are doing it in the open and in front of everyone else. Soon we realised he was actually referring to the traditional medicine practice of cupping to remove dirty blood and/or 'wind' from the body of a patient with poor health! 

So what is actually this public cupping series all about? Cupping is an act of tasting coffee, a degustation of flavours on a taster palate that follows a very systematic process. It is an almost standardise way of tasting a lot of coffees on the table, with or without a scoring sheet, to rate a coffee using a standard guideline. Yes there is the espresso machine or the variety of hand brewing tools that also allows us to serve the same purpose of tasting but only via cupping, a group of tasters can taste  a bigger variety of coffees at one go and being able to re-visit the coffees by taking a few steps back or forward. The parameters are kept the same, 12gm coffee coarsely grounded to approximately 200-220ml of 'after-boiling' temperature water and steeped for 4 minutes before the actual tasting takes place. In doing so, it also eliminates parameters that are like moving targets, for example - different extraction time and/or different amount of water in pulses during mass brewing. This consistency allows the tasters to purely analyse the coffees purely for its flavour and not the brewing error of a barista.

During the cupping series, our team of barista who forms the Coffee Leadership Team (CLT) in Dutch Colony will take turns and be scheduled to run the series with their own cupping themes and their choice of single origins to feature. So far we have experimented with different water types, roast profile, grind size and even temperature to drive the message home on how best to enjoy coffee at home. Each passing month theme is different and returning participants have been leaving raving reviews each time, all the times.

We will be wrapping up year 2018 with the last public cupping series in the month of December. To be one of the 12 participants (we are keeping it small for December due to the technicality involved as well as the challenge of space), do keep a lookout and sign up when registration open midnight today at Eventbrite or visit www.dutchcolony.sg and/or our Instagram. We love to see you in the session next month.