The group I was in started with coffee. We took green coffee beans and roasted them. We removed some beans early for a lighter roast, and cooked the other beans longer to form a darker roast. We then tried both coffee and espresso. The espresso, despite being held in high regard by coffee enthusiast, was too bitter for my taste. However, I greatly preferred the dark roast coffee to the light roast. The dark had a much stronger, fuller flavor and a much more powerful coffee smell.
Next we tried four teas.
The first was Pu-erh tea, which is made from the large-leaf variety of the Camellia plant, which is grown in southwestern China. The leaves had already been fermented; the smell reminded me of tobacco (possibly due to the fermentation process) and was also a little smoky. After steeping the leaves in hot water, the tea took on the smell of a horse farm, something along the lines of decaying grass and manure. Unfortunately, the tea tasted like it smelled, although it didn't have a very strong flavor. The tea is often pressed into small cakes and aged for potentially years.
The second tea was Golden Yunnan, which is a black tea from the Yunnan region of China. Yunnan is in southern China bordering Vietnam, and contains China's oldest wild tea tree. The tea smelled light and sweet, and a bit like a mixture of spices. After steeping, the tea maintained this smell, but was less strong. The flavor of the tea seemed weak and generic to me, like something out of a normal black tea package. That being said, I don't drink tea on a regular basis and may have failed to pick up on some nuances to the flavor.
Thirdly, we tried Gunpowder Chinese Green Tea, a green tea produced in Eastern China. The leaves themselves are rolled tightly into little bundles, as rolling the leaves makes them less susceptible to damage, and the leaves can therefore maintain their flavor more fully. This type of tea dates back to at least the Tang Dynasty (618-907AD). The Gunpowder leaves smelled very similar to the Pu-erh, this time with a slightly more herbal aspect to the horse farm scent. Again, the scent remained after steeping the tea. The tea did not taste like it smelled, however, and reminded me of generic green tea. Again, if there were any special nuances to the flavor, I missed them completely.
Lastly, we tried White Peony Indian White Tea, which is produced in the Darjeeling region of India. The leaves for white tea are picked before they open fully, and there is no fermentation process. The aroma of the White Peony was much more pleasant than the other teas, as it had a light, soft, sweet, and slightly spicy aroma. After steeping, the tea smelled more herbal and floral and not as sweet. The taste, though weak, was good, as the tea was sweeter than the others. Otherwise, there were not really any stand-out flavors to the tea.
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Coffee originated in Ethiopia, and today is the seventh-largest coffee producer in the world. Partly due to the fact that Ethiopia almost exclusively grows Arabica coffee, Ethiopian coffee is generally considered to be of high quality. Nearly all Ethiopian coffee can be considered 'organic,' as coffee is still grown by hand in Ethiopia.
Since coffee was introduced in 1727, Brazil has become the largest coffee producer in the world, and is most known for producing lower-grade coffee. As such, many canned coffees and espressos contain a significant percentage of Brazilian coffee beans. Despite this reputation, Brazil still exports a large amount of high-quality specialty coffees. Unlike in Ethiopia, many mechanical harvesters are used to gather the coffee beans.
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