Stimulating profession for coffee lover
As cool job titles go, it’s tough to beat Liz Bishop’s.
Bishop is the director of coffee for Java Blend and Sine Coffee Labs, and is a certified Arabica Q grader, the equivalent of a sommelier or a beer cicerone.
She drinks coffee. A lot of coffee.
At home, 25 per cent of her counter space is devoted to coffee equipment (“That is what I’m allowed to have.”) and she figures she owns enough gear to open her own small shop.
After a pot of coffee is consumed at home in the morning, Bishop goes to work, where she switches from recreational coffee drinking to professional coffee drinking.
“It’s hard to equate how many cups of coffee that is in a day; I’d say between eight and 12 cups without any cream or sugar, mostly milk. Sometimes I’ll have a milk beverage at one of the cafes because it’s always good to taste the espresso with milk.”
Bishop is one of just four coffee judges in Canada at her level. If the owners of Java Blend decide, for example, they need a new coffee from Colombia, Bishop will bring in beans from a dozen farms, sample them all and make a decision on which suits their customers best.
The method by which coffee is evaluated by a Q grader is called cupping. Bishop can evaluate eight coffees at a time.
“We basically put ground coffee in a cup and pour hot water on it and then, just like a French press, after four minutes we evaluate the aroma and take a spoon and we slurp,” she said.
“You slurp and you spit; sometimes we don’t spit. That allows you to see what each cup has to offer.”
Bishop started working as a barista in 2004 in Wolfville, and it was just a few years later that the idea of a career in coffee formed for her.
She has a goal of bringing national coffee competitions to Atlantic Canada, and a moderately firm policy.
“I don’t drink coffee after 4 p.m.,” she said.
“As a rule.”