John Davidson, Head of Advocacy and Innovation at Stuart Alexander, an exclusive distributor of MONIN in Australia, says flavour pairing is “a skillset all three professions of bartenders, baristas and wine sommeliers can and should be learning from each other”.
A certified sommelier and bartender himself, it wasn’t until John’s first visit to the Melbourne International Coffee Expo in 2019 that he witnessed the similarities between coffee cupping and wine tasting.
“I was enthralled by the coffee cupping. It’s not unlike the process used in 1000-year-old wine tasting competitions,” he says. “It was really inspiring to see people use the simple brewing of coffee with water and their taste experience and secondary aromas to determine the origin of the coffee, the altitude in which it was grown, the climate, air and soil quality. Immediately, the cocktail
