Preface

I was working at an English education company. The office was full of native English speakers, and I had no confidence when it came to actually talking in English.

Still, brewing coffee at lunch was a hobby of mine, and I did hope someone might come by for it.

So I drew a flyer on my iPad. Where, what time, free coffee. I printed it and left it somewhere visible.

Version 2 of the flyer was titled Dégustation. Some people were curious about my background in French, so it made for decent bait.

With the coffee gear laid out in front of us, what people mostly talked about was me.

“I really should be paying you for the beans.”

“Do you have a coffee certification?”

“So when are you opening a café?”

What I was waiting for, though, was talk about the taste of coffee. “This one has — acidity? is that it — doesn’t it.” And when I asked whether it suited them, I don’t think anyone has ever told me it was too much. Thankfully. Not yet, anyway.

What I found myself wanting a little more of was this: that they’d stop and consider what kind of acidity it was — closer to peach, or closer to citrus — because then the taste would stay with them far more concretely. There’s also the fact that what passes in conversation doesn’t last. Especially when there are a lot of people.

Dégustation started from that. The verb déguster is close to apprécier — to savor, to recognize what something is worth.

I hope this service does two things.

For the person drinking: that they learn something new about their own palate. “Huh, this kind of acidity is fine with me.” “Heavy body is a bit much for me.” Origin characteristics can come later.

And for the person hosting the tasting: that a sense of shared taste lingers afterward.

Open a tasting and a QR code appears. Whoever’s drinking scans it and leaves an answer — no login, no name to type in. The result stays as a link, and once the tasting closes, you can open up a comparison with everyone else’s answers. And a single card remains, summarizing that day’s tasting.