A Third Wave Coffee Workshop with a Coffee Q-Grader

As a foodie, I have been always curious about food and beverage products that are changing the dining scene in different countries. For the past couple of years, Filipinos, who are mostly coffee drinkers, have become more discriminating in their taste for coffee as more coffee shops now offer specialty coffee and single origin type coffee. Furthermore, independent and local coffee shops have also opened in key cities and have promoted coffee using the slow brewing method.

Since I wanted to learn more about coffee and the coffee business I ended up enrolling myself in a coffee workshop at Enderun school a couple of years ago. The workshop was conducted by a Q-Grader or  Certified Coffee Expert, who happens to be a U.S. based Filipino-American named Kat Mulingtapang.

Kat Mulingtapang, a certified Q grader, shared her passion about
coffee and the process involved in finding coffee that suits one's taste.

Meeting Kat Mulingtapang, was a great experience. She shared how her passion for coffee had led her to her job as a coffee expert or a Q-grader. Her work is similar to that of being a wine sommelier but in her case it is being a connoisseur for coffee and it involves doing cupping and tasting various types of coffee from all over the world. Being a Q grader is not a job for everyone since one has to have a great taste palate and needs to be certified in order to have such a job. Part of her talk is informing the participants about Third Wave coffee.

Third Wave coffee refers to a movement to produce high-quality coffee and consider it artisanal foodstuff, like wine, rather than a commodity. This involves improving the stages of production, improving the coffee plant growing, enhancing relationships between coffee growers, traders and roasters and using high quality roasting in order to offer high quality coffee that is world-class.

The term “Third Wave” was coined by Timothy Castle in 1999 and refers to a focus on quality. Third Wave coffee can be seen as part of the specialty coffee movement. This refers to the whole process from farmer to cup using single origin coffee. Specialty coffee includes coffee which have undergone a grading system and only coffee with 80 to 100 point scale is considered specialty coffee.

True coffee drinkers with discriminating palates drink coffee without milk or sugar in it since this would give the drinker the ability to taste the unique flavors and notes of the specialty coffee on its own. Specialty coffee, which is grown in ideal climates, have tastes and notes that are a result of the special characteristics and composition of the soils in which they are produced.

Coffee tools such as grinders and coffee press machines and
some roasted local coffee beans.

During the workshop she presented to us various types of coffee beans. Being a Filipina, she takes pride in sharing with us that the coffee beans that she tasted from Mindanao impressed her and she considers it to be of high quality.

During her talk, she told us that it is important to be mindful when doing coffee cupping and tasting. There is a wide spectrum to consider with regards to the different notes that one can determine with their taste buds. Thus, apart from using spoons to taste a freshly made cup of coffee made using the right water temperature and right amount of freshly ground coffee, one also has to discern the different notes that one tastes as one does the cupping activity.

Green unroasted Arabica coffee beans sourced from different
provinces in the Philippines

Different scents that help coffee Q graders determine the
scent of the coffee that they are cupping or tasting.

The color wheel chart used by Q graders in order to take
note of notes of flavours and acidity  of the coffee
 that they are cupping or tasting.

Similar to wine being paired with food, coffee with different notes can also be paired with different types of food. This is not uncommon today, since even global giants like Starbucks, has also seen the growing demand for Single Origin coffee and has also invested in opening Starbucks Reserve stores which offer Single origin/Third wave type coffee variants for the more discriminating coffee drinkers. 

Usually, the baristas at Starbucks get trained in tasting single origin type coffee and checking which food items they can best pair with the different types of Single origin coffee that they offer so that they are able to suggest coffee and food pairing to customers.

Starbucks reserve store baristas having
coffee tasting and talking about which
food items are best paired for each one.

A Starbucks reserve store  barista preparing coffee using
Siphon brewing method.

Currently, countries known for producing high quality specialty coffee/single origin coffee include Columbia, Ethiopia, Brazil and Indonesia. In terms of coffee species, only Arabica coffee is the one that can be considered as specialty coffee.

In the Philippines, some of the coffee shops offering single origin coffee include brands such as Starbucks Reserve, Toby’s Estate, UCC coffee, Yardstick Coffee, Cartel, EDSA Bev, etc. There are also local cafes that have been set-up by enterprising Filipinos such as Local Edition, which only coffee using locally sourced coffee beans and Tilde coffee shop, which offers handcrafted coffee using pour-over method.

Handcrafted coffee prepared by a barista at
 Tilde cafe in Makati

With the busy lifestyles of consumers today, coffee has become part of their daily lives. People often hold meetings in coffee shops to talk about business as a way of escaping the usual office environment and holding a discussion in a more relaxed environment. Some also do some work in coffee shops in order to remain alert as they do their work since it provides them a busy environment. Apart from this, going to coffee shops to meet up with friends has also become a common phenomenon today since people get a nice and  cozy ambience, good music and good food to pair with their favourite coffee at coffee shops today.

It is certain that coffee shop business will continue to thrive as more consumers today become busy and since coffee shops become a convenient place for people to go to for them to get some work done or simply to catch up with good friends who also enjoy have a good cup of handcrafted or single origin type coffee.

Toby's cafe offers specialty coffee using their own blends
and one of the popular blends is Woolloomooloo blend
which has notes of spice, earth, cocoa and caramel.

Cheers to spending time with friends and family while having a good cup of coffee and to more coffee tasting and learning!