The Cupping

This is time at the table with Ruben — a man who weighs the beans to the tenth of a gram, watches the water temperature like it owes him money, times every pour, and has firm opinions about all of it. He's the kind of person who turned a daily cup into a craft, and it shows in everything he does.

He sets up a proper cupping — the way professionals actually taste — and walks you through it: the same beans, brewed side by side, until your palate starts catching what it's been missing all along. The acidity. The body. The notes hiding in there you'd never have named. He explains the why behind each one without ever making you feel like you're behind.

It's all Costa Rican coffee — beans grown up the road and across the country's growing regions — and somewhere in the tasting the whole culture of it opens up: why coffee runs this deep here, how it's grown and picked and processed, what makes one valley taste nothing like the next. By the end you understand the cup in your hand, not just the country it came from.

It's precise, a little nerdy, and completely absorbing — watching someone this good do the thing they love is its own kind of show. You'll walk out tasting coffee differently, and faintly annoyed at every cup you drink for a while after.