6 Week Program running on Saturday mornings at UCD Campus in Belfield. Starts Sat 30 Jan 2010
Course Description
Coffee Flavour Wheel
Flavour is made up of a complex association of many different attributes and characteristics that combine to give the overall impression that we perceive when we taste foods. During this course participants will focus on developing their tasting skills to deconstruct or analyse complex flavours such as coffee, tea, wine, chocolate and whiskey.Participants will learn about the production processes that give rise to the flavours and will use flavour training standards to train their palates to detect the important attributes or flavour notes in each food group. Sessions will be interactive and experiential and will include ‘taste tests’ and exercises to challenge and develop participants’ tasting skills.
Booking contact 01 – 7167123 or UCD Adult Education
More Details
The schedule for the classes will be as follows:
Week 1 (30 Jan): Wine
Week 2 (06 Feb): Coffee
Week 3 (13 Feb): Chocolate
Week 4 (20 Feb): Whiskey
Week 5 (27 Feb): Tea
Week 6 (06 Mar): Cheese plus wrap-up of course
Each session consists of a number of structured tastings involving a taste training element, some descriptive tastings (describing the perceptions you experience when you are tasting), some preference tastings (which sample you prefer and why) as well as some specific taste tests: ie spot the different sample in a triplet of samples. These tastings will be designed to improve a participant’s tasting skills, get more out of the tasting experience as well as more fully appreciating and experiencing the foods that we eat.
The samples used for the tastings will be chosen to demonstrate the diversity of flavours that can be experienced within the specific food category. While many of these samples will be from specialty/artisan type producers, some samples will be taken from the ordinary supermarket shelf to aid comparisons and stimulate debate.
Group discussions follow each tasting exercise so that there will be plenty of opportunities to share your experiences/thoughts/questions with the group and to engage in lively discussions.
Why Saturday mornings? Mornings are the best times to taste as our brains are more alert and our palates are clean. Also, a Saturday morning allows the sessions to be 3 hrs long which would not be possible on a week day evenings. And I work Mon – Fri so it has to be Saturdays!
So forget Saturday Kitchen on the BBC and come along for your Saturday Morning Tastings…what better way to start the weekend!!
David
