Seattle Coffee Guide: Coffee Talk
Long gone are the days when phrases like “tall skinny latte walking” sounded like a foreign language
By Lara Ferroni December 31, 1969
Direct trade or farm direct: This refers to roasters who purchase their beans directly from the farmers who grow them.
Fair trade: A certification program that ensures coffee-growing, labor-management and environmental practices that are beneficial to the farmers who grow the beans.
Single origin: Coffee varieties using beans that come from just one farm or area in a particular coffee-growing region (rather than a blend from various places).
Shade grown: Coffee beans that are grown in the traditional way, under canopies of trees, rather than on large plantations in which all the non-coffee-bearing trees have been removed. This is not only an environmentally friendly practice, but it also produces coffee of higher quality and more complexity than field-grown coffee.
Cupping: A tasting of particular coffees, like a wine tasting. At a cupping, coffee is brewed, sniffed and then slurped using special spoons to learn about the aromas and flavors of the coffees.
Toddy: A method of cold-brewing low-acid coffee for iced coffee by which the grounds sit in cold water in a filter bag for an extended period of time.