2K

.

Coffee Tasting at Altitude with Nespresso

Discovering Your Alter Ego In Zermatt

.

The other week I was invited by Nespresso to attend three coffee workshops in Zermatt. The intriguing titles of the workshops were “Discover Your Alter Ego”, “Experience Your Sensorial Alter Ego” and “Create Your Personal Alter Ego”. Looking forward to what lay ahead, I set off inquisitively on an early train from Zurich through the beautiful Swiss countryside to the charming village of Zermatt.

The journey by train from Zurich is really special and there is so much to see.

Zermatt

Zermatt in Canton Valais is a beautiful town and well worth a stay. It’s renowned for its skiing, climbing and Alpine recreation and is home to the iconic Matterhorn. It was put on the map by British mountaineers, including Edward Whymper, whose conquest of the Matterhorn in 1835 made history.

Hotel Cervo

Zermatt has a car free anti-pollution policy and most vehicles are battery powered so from the station we were taken to the stylish boutique Hotel Cervo in a battery powered taxi. After a friendly welcome from the manager Daniel and the reception staff, we checked into our lovely wooden chalet and had a welcome coffee before the Nespresso team explained the program for the day.

Discovering Nespresso Grand Cru Coffee

The first workshop “Discover”, took place on the Hotel Cervo’s terrace.

Three cups of different Grand Cru coffees were laid out on pieces of slates and our first exercise was to evaluate them and to find which one most appealed to us, to our “alter ego” so to speak.

It was a tricky choice as if I’m honest I’d say I liked all three. Sure there were big differences in depth of flavour, aroma and intensity – but I could see myself drinking each of these for different occasions, e.g. the most intense one in the morning, the mildest one in the evening and the medium one during the day.

However, we had to choose one and I chose the Volluto, which was colour coded gold. The other two were colour coded light blue and deep purple.

Photo courtesy of Nespresso

Decaffeinated Grand Cru Coffee

We were then given the news that each of the three coffees we had tasted were all decaffeinated! They were the Arpeggio Decaffeinato, Volluto Decaffeinato and Vivalto Lungo Decaffeinato. It didn’t seem possible as they had were each so different, so full flavoured, not at all what you associate in your mind with the word decaffeinated! So in fact these three coffees can take you from day into night and can literally be drunk anytime. The capsules are identical to the usual Nespresso capsules except on the bottom there is a brick red dot that denotes that they are decaffeinated.

Experiencing (and Tasting) Nespresso Grand Cru Coffee

As we were reeling from the news that they had all been decafs, we were then taken to the next workshop which was entitled “Experience” and here the fun really began!

In the dining area each of the menus was colour coded to match with one of the coffee grand crus and there was a specially created tasting menu for each coffee that we had chosen. There were 3 different starters, 3 different mains and 3 different puddings – all selected carefully to work with the coffee types we had selected as our “alter ego”.

We were served our coffees at the start of the menu and you could really taste how well the food matched the coffee. Wine was also served to match the coffee, the food, and of course, our “alter egos”!

All the flavours complemented each other amazingly and the food was delicious.

Creating our own Nespresso Alter Ego

After lunch it was time to experiment and to create our own personalised coffee in a little laboratory. We had to don white coats and play food scientist as we learned about all the different components that go into making a custom coffee and all about the decaffeination process.

100% Natural Decaffeination Process

Nespresso use a 100% natural  water-based decaffeination process (unlike many other companies) which allows the caffeine to be removed without altering the taste of the coffee. All I can say is that it’s not as easy as it sounds – and a terrific amount of work goes in to creating these special coffees.

After the workshops we went to visit the famous Chez Vrony Restaurant in Zermatt for a coffee inspired evening menu. Find out more about this in a later post.

So how do you like your coffee? What’s your Alter Ego? Have you tried these three Grand Crus yet? To find out more about these very special Nespresso coffees which you can drink any time of day or night, take a look at the Nespresso website here.

*********************

With thanks to Nespresso for a wonderful coffee adventure!

All photos taken on Olympus OMDEM10 except where mentioned otherwise.

For more information about Events in Zurich and beyond please see our What’s On Page or our News Articles or for regular updates subscribe to our blog.

**********************