访谈录 Interview 2007-04-18&20, 探讨咖啡工艺

Long before you do this, someone at Starbucks has done this. It's the spit-and-polish of coffee making. You are inside the cupping room at Starbucks world headquarters in Seattle. This is where the coffee that eventually makes it into your hand, first gets vetted¹.

We evaluate flavor of the coffee to make sure that they are of the quality that we want and that we're gonna be able to use them the way that we want in our coffee blends and a single origin offerings.

Today they're testing 40 coffees. And this is a light day. Sometimes this table is crammed² with hundreds of glasses, each one a little different, each one needing a taste.

I start with the basics, and I do look for that, those scientific pieces, the acidity³, the body, the flavor and the complexity⁴.

Only 20 people worldwide have this job for Starbucks. These three work here in Seattle. They begin by grinding the beans. Next comes the shot of boiling purified water. Then they stir the finished product.

That's gonna release a steam from the top, that is when you're building up underneath⁵. So you're gonna get a real good sense of what that, what the coffee is gonna taste like.

Inhale⁶ the aroma⁷.

I'm not just do real good agitation⁸, it's tough and then what's gonna happen is gonna saturate⁹ the grounds, and the grounds are gonna fall on the bottom of the cup.

And skim the froth. Only after that, those coffee meet power.

It's not really about how loud you slurp¹⁰, it's not really about how violent you slurp, actually it's all about atomizing the coffee to make sure kind of sprays around your mouth. You've told the mouth feel and also get(s) in your old factories, so that you can actually evaluate the flavor fully¹¹ at that point.

These are not people you wanna invite over for coffee. If they'll like it, they spit it out. And if they do like it, they spit it out. They have some of the most sophisticated coffee palates in the world. They can actually tell from the taste where a cup of coffee was grown. And Starbucks listens closely to what the cuppers as they are called have to say.

We say that some people have a golden tongue in the building, and if they like it, you know, they pretty much know what's gonna do well.

It's probably the only job where burning your tongue means you have to take a sick day.

1 vetted   

v.审查（某人过去的记录、资格等）( vet的过去式和过去分词 )；调查；检查；诊疗

参考例句：

• The recruits were thoroughly vetted before they were allowed into the secret service. 情报机关招募的新成员要经过严格的审查。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• All staff are vetted for links with extremist groups before being employed. 所有职员录用前均须审查是否与极端分子团体有关。 来自辞典例句

2 crammed   

adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式)

参考例句：

• He crammed eight people into his car. 他往他的车里硬塞进八个人。
• All the shelves were crammed with books. 所有的架子上都堆满了书。

3 acidity   

n.酸度，酸性

参考例句：

• This plant prefers alkaline soil,though it will readily tolerate some acidity.这种植物在酸性土壤中也能生存，但硷性土壤更加适宜。
• Gastric acidity would not prevent the organism from passing into the gut.胃的酸度不能防止细菌进入肠道。

4 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。

5 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

6 inhale   

v.吸入(气体等)，吸(烟)

参考例句：

• Don't inhale dust into your lung.别把灰尘吸进肺里。
• They are pleased to not inhale second hand smoke.他们很高兴他们再也不会吸到二手烟了。

7 aroma   

n.香气，芬芳，芳香

参考例句：

• The whole house was filled with the aroma of coffee.满屋子都是咖啡的香味。
• The air was heavy with the aroma of the paddy fields.稻花飘香。

8 agitation   

n.搅动；搅拌；鼓动，煽动

参考例句：

• Small shopkeepers carried on a long agitation against the big department stores.小店主们长期以来一直在煽动人们反对大型百货商店。
• These materials require constant agitation to keep them in suspension.这些药剂要经常搅动以保持悬浮状态。

9 saturate   

vt.使湿透，浸透；使充满，使饱和

参考例句：

• We'll saturate California with the rise in its crime rate.我们将使加利福尼亚州的犯罪案件增长率达到饱和点。
• Saturate the meat in the mixture of oil and herbs.把肉浸泡在油和作料的卤汁里。

10 slurp   

n.啜食；vt.饮食出声

参考例句：

• You may not slurp your soup.喝汤不可发出声音。
• Do you always slurp when a milkshake?你总是这样啧啧喝牛奶吗？

11 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。