09/21/2026
What does quality actually taste like? That was the question at the heart of Coffee 101 last Saturday at Back Bay, back for the first time in six years.
George and Jenny led the room through four guided tastings, each one built around a single principle: that understanding coffee is a skill, and like any skill, it begins with learning what to pay attention to.
Coffee speaks in five tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salt, and umami. Acidity is a liveliness, and when balanced against sweetness, it's what makes a coffee sing. Bitterness provides structure. Salt softens the sour. Umami lingers in the finish, long after the cup is empty.
From there, the tastings went to work. Frozen vs. stale vs. aged: freshness is a science, and George Howell Coffee has spent decades perfecting it. Ripe vs. unripe: quality begins at origin, in the hands of the farmers who harvest each cherry at precisely the right moment. Washed, natural, and anaerobic: process is flavor, and tasting them side by side makes that undeniable.
The day closed with a flight through six origins from around the world, coffees that exist because of long-term partnerships with producers who share the same standard for quality that drives everything we do.
The more you understand, the more you taste. Follow along here and visit georgehowellcoffee.com to stay informed on upcoming educational events and tastings at our locations.
