The bad news is that I screwed up when I told you Caffe Vita’s cupping of Sumatran coffee was on Wednesday at 10 a.m. I was looking at the wrong month’s calendar.
The good news is that Caffe Vita did, in fact, have a tasting of Sumatran coffee — including civet coffee or Kopi Luwak — at that time. They always have tastings at 10 a.m. on Wednesdays.
The even better news is that there’s another Sumatran cupping tomorrow (Friday) at 10 a.m. It’s free and open to the public.
The grower who was expected to attend didn’t make it to Seattle, but two guys who are responsible for bringing a lot of Sumatran coffee to the U.S. will be there. They are exporters A. Syafrudin of PT. Sabani Internasional in Jakarta and Asnawi Saleh from the parent company, PT. Indokom Citra Persada in Surabaya, East Java.
Caffe Vita has held several tastings of Sumatran coffee since its roaster and green coffee buyer, Mason Sager, and Michael Hebb of One Pot visited that Indonesian island last month.
They share moving stories about the area and the growers they met, along with divine Sumatran coffee they tasted and bought.
Sager explained that the Kopi Luwak — coffee that’s eaten by wild cats called civets, then retrieved from their droppings before being processed and roasted — contains particularly good coffee, because the civet “has an uncanny ability to seek out and eat the ripest coffee beans it can find.”
With a completely straight face, Hebb said, “It’s really, really pure in its flavors. It’s incredibly well washed.”
Sorry about the screw-up, and hope to see you at 10 a.m. Friday (tomorrow) at the Caffe Vita on Capitol Hill, 1005 E Pike St.
