Page 10 of Sexpresso Night

“Now for the tasting. By now the coffees have cooled off a little, which is good for tasting. I’m going to clear off the remaining crust.” He picked up two cupping spoons, placed them into the cup near the back. He dragged them forward around the edges to meet again at the front of the cup, then scooped up just the grounds. “Now, what we want to do, is take some of the coffee with our spoon…” He did so. “And then slurp it…like this.” And with a long, loud slurp he drew the coffee deeply into his mouth. Then spit it out into a convenient container. “You don’t have to spit it out,” he continued. “You should swallow some to evaluate aftertastes, but I drink so much coffee all day I’d be awake for the next year if I swallowed all the ones I taste.” They all laughed and he caught Danya’s dancing eyes.

“Why do you slurp it like that?” she asked.

“Sounds rude, huh?” He grinned. “It’s not just ’cause I’m a guy. There are flavor receptors all through our mouths, right at the back, right up into our olfactories, so to get the full experience, all the nuances, we want to make sure to aerate the coffee and expose even the back of our mouth to it.” He watched her pupils dilate at his words and smiled. “You try it. Be sure to rinse your spoon in the water between tastes, and also your mouth.” He indicated the pitchers of water and glasses on the table.

They all picked up spoons and noisy slurping sounds filled the room with earthy, almost sexual sounds. Kind of like an enthusiastic orgy.

Mind out of the gutter, Jarvis.

“Let’s talk about some of the characteristics of coffee,” he said. “Acidity could be described as the brightness or sharpness of the coffee. Acidity can be intense or mild, soft or edgy, subdued or wild—like sex.”

That got some laughs.

“Body is sometimes called mouthfeel. It’s the weight or heaviness of the coffee in your mouth. Think about thickness when you taste, the physical feel of the coffee in your mouth.”

Christ, he couldn’t stop making sexual comparisons tonight, and as he caught Danya’s eyes he knew she was thinking the same thing.

“Then we have sweetness. Sweetness eases the acidity of a coffee. You need the balance of the two to appreciate both. Just like the balance between pleasure and pain.” He caught another wide-eyed look from Danya and grinned. “And finally, there’s finish. As I mentioned, there’s an aftertaste that lingers and it should be clean and sweet.”

He walked behind his guests. “Make mental notes as you taste,” he encouraged. “Really think about what you’re tasting. Which one do you find sweeter?”

Most of the people made a face of uncertainty. Danya pointed to the Columbian. “This one.”

He nodded approvingly and she beamed. “Yes, that one is sweeter. What else did you notice about it?”

She took another delicate slurp, making him smile, then said, “Um…chocolate?”

“Very good! I also think there are hints of caramel in it. You might perceive it as burnt sugar. But it’s not burnt.”

She nodded, hanging on his every word. Sexy as fucking hell.

“This Ethiopian coffee has a nice fruity cup.” He indicated which one. “And the Costa Rican is full bodied and spicy—you might taste hints of cinnamon and cloves. The Sumatra is intense, earthy and aromatic.” He inhaled deeply over the cup, eyes closed to deepen the sensory experience. When he rose and opened his eye to see Danya staring at him, cheeks flushed, lips parted, heat sizzled through his veins.

“This Arabian bean is wild and exotic. And our French roast, which is our darkest roast, is smoky and intense.” He clamped down on the arousal that was threatening to derail his cupping. “All of these coffees are available as beans or we’ll custom grind them for you, so if you find one you like, be sure to pick some up.”

His sales pitch. Well, that was what it was all about. Sort of. He loved tasting coffee and teaching others about it too. But yeah, if he didn’t sell the stuff, he wouldn’t be in business.

When everyone had finished and the room had cleared out, except for Danya, he started cleaning up. Happily she stayed to help again.

“That was fascinating,” she said, eyes sparkling. “I never realized there was so much to know about coffee. And…” She met his gaze. “I didn’t realize you’re the owner of this shop.”

“And three others,” he said modestly.

“How did you get to this?” She stacked cups and carried them to the counter where he’d installed a dishwasher just for this room. Together they loaded it up.

“I started serving coffee at a chain coffee shop. Took some courses. Got pretty good at building the specialty coffees. Entered some competitions. The roasting part of it interested me too. I experimented with some pretty arcane roasting methods.”

“Like what?” She shot him a puzzled look as she dropped a handful of spoons into the dishwasher.

He grinned. “The best is a Westbend popcorn popper.”

Her pretty mouth fell open. “You roast coffee beans in a popcorn popper?”

“Well, not any more. Not all the time anyway. It’s still fun to play around with. You have to listen until you hear the beans crack once. Then a few minutes later they crack and sizzle again. It’s fun getting them just to the right darkness.”

She shook her head. “That is unbelievable.”

“Go ahead, tell me I’m a total coffee geek.”

---