I went to a coffee tasting.

Tony's Coffee has an Espresso Training Lab in Ballard (Seattle) where they not only sell coffee, but also host a weekly coffee cupping and tasting. They don't have milk, which means they do not make lattes or cappuccinos.



We tried 6 different methods to taste one kind of beans.



1. AeroPress

As the name indicates, air presses the coffee through the filter. It tastes almost like black tea, and since it doesn't really have any sourness or bitterness, I think it is something I can drink comfortably.


2. Clever Dripper

The Clever Dripper is like a mix of the French press and a paper drip. The coffee tastes more like "coffee" than the coffee from the AeroPress. It has more of that coffee flavor, and similar to the AeroPress, there isn’t much sourness or bitterness.


3. Paper filter drip

We use this paper filter drip a lot in Japan, so it's very regular/normal to me, but it has more sourness and bitterness than the Clever Dripper and AeroPress. Still, it’s smooth and easy to drink.


4. Auto drip (they use auto aero-drip)

To me there, there is a huge difference between the auto AeroPress and hand AeroPress. While the hand AeroPress tastes like a tea, the auto AeroPress tastes just like drip coffee. I actually want to compare this to a regular auto drip machine.


5. Chemex

This is the Chemex (looks like the tool from a science class), which was first introduced in 1941. Its functional and beautiful design is recognized worldwide, and it’s a part of the collection at MoMa. Since it's very simple to brew coffee with a Chemex, I feel that this brings both the good and the bad at the same time. I also think the coffee tastes the sourest and bitterest with this.


6. Americano (espresso + hot water)

Well, yeah this is the Americano. At this point, I was amazed so many different tastes can come from one kind of bean, so the only real thing I can say about the Americano is that, well, “it tastes like an Americano." Sorry!