Austin’s Houndstooth Coffee Event Pairs World Brews, Cheese and Chocolates

Here, Mezze Culture’s guests enjoyed our coffee and food pairing class hosted by Scotland-inspired Houndstooth Coffee—we learned about and tasted coffee, cheeses, and chocolate from several countries, including France, Kenya, Tanzania, Honduras, Colombia, and Guatemala. Below are some photos.

Daniel, the shop’s director of coffee and education took us through an hour long palate class, where he introduced us to the basics of how our senses affect our ability to taste different sensations—sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami flavors.

We tasted coffees from Colombia, Guatemala, Burundi, and Kenya. Houndstooth Coffee also explained how the elevation of these countries affects the acidity of the coffee. The higher the elevation, the more acidic the brew. The coffee from Kenya, for example, was paired with two different cheeses from France (a soft cheese and a hard cheese).

Our gathering was also treated to pairing of a combination of apples that we learned actually worked to complement the flavors of the Colombian coffee they were paired with.

It was fascinating to learn how aroma, acidity, flavor, body and mouthfeel all described the experience as we explored these foods and coffees from different countries. We also paired chocolates from Honduras and Tanzania with coffee from Guatemala, and learned how elevation was important to cacao farmers. The Tanzanian chocolate, for example,  had a vanilla and strawberry flavor, and higher acidity which resulted in a sweeter flavor. The chocolate from Honduras had a more cherry flavor and heavier mouthfeel. I’ll bet you didn’t know that flavor is heavily linked to your sense of smell!