A dream that began in 7th grade, Oliver Pritkin passes the Q. Today, he is one of the youngest professional coffee cuppers in the world!
1. Congratulations on passing the Q. Where did your journey start in coffee?
OP: I started drinking coffee when I was 7, but not regularly. Every morning, the smell of coffee filled our house, and I would wake up to the sound of the grinder like an alarm clock. I began to appreciate the flavors of coffee and the uniqueness of the drink.
As time went on, I found myself interested in the world of scent and flavor. I became obsessed with candles, colognes, room sprays and Marvis toothpaste flavors. Did you know they make a Black Forest flavored toothpaste? I guess I found it all intriguing. I still do.
2. What inspired you to go for certification as an Arabica Q grader?
OP: Over the years, I have attended many cuppings with our baristas, kinda as an outsider to help choose auditioning roasters at GCG. I found the process of cupping and discussing the flavor notes a lot of fun.
There are many varieties of coffees grown around the world in different regions, and these regions all have unique soil and climate conditions. This, combined with different types of coffee plants, creates the wide variety of flavors that specialty and non-specialty coffees are known for.
This is why many coffees from Ethiopia have fruitier flavors while coffees from Central America, like Mexico, can have more chocolatey flavors.
Some coffees can taste a little strange and different than what people think coffee normally tastes like and can sometimes taste tea-like. There are a lot of floral notes in coffee, like tea. Overall, I found the world of coffee really interesting, so becoming a Q grader was the next step. I decided in 7th grade to go for it.
3. What did your friends think?
OP: They thought it was interesting, but I don’t think they really understood it.
4. Becoming a Q grader is equivalent to becoming a sommelier of coffee. That is not something 7th graders do.
OP: Not really. I felt the time was right and was up for the challenge. I also wanted to take my experience in coffee to the next level.
Taking the Q is not just about cupping and scoring coffees like a professional based on aroma, acidity, body, flavor, and aftertaste but also learning about coffee itself—like the roasting process, where coffee comes from, green coffee quality, and other useful information. It also refines your palate, which would allow me to help select coffees for GoCoffeeGo.
Taking the Q for me wasn’t really about helping with the site itself but more about my passion for coffee in general.
5. What is involved in taking the Q?
OP: Passing the Q takes up a lot of your time. If you are lucky, you can get through the Q in a week, but no one really does. Passing is very hard.
There are few places to take the Q, spread out across the world, the sessions are at sporadic intervals, and the tests themselves are extremely difficult. From what I remember, there are around 19 tests total.
One was a 100-question general knowledge test on topics from the capital of Colombia to types of coffee defects to the equipment needed in a cupping lab.
Another was a triangulation test in a dark red-lit room, where you are presented with trays containing three nearly indistinguishable coffees—two are the same and one is different. Often they are from the same region with similar flavor notes.
When I was not in dark rooms, I often had to wear red goggles rendering me blind for the many tests. I relied on my senses to judge which one of the three coffees was different based on smell, taste differences, and body.
Even though in hindsight the scene of people stressfully huddled around cups in a horror-like blood-colored room is kind of comedic, that test wasn’t fun.
6. Explain the scent tests. What was that like, and how did you prepare?
OP: There were a variety of scent tests using oils from the Le Nez Du Cafe set, whose name literally translates to “coffee nose.”
The set can be separated into four categories:
- Dry Distillation (Pepper, Cedar, Coriander)
- Aromatic Taints (Rubber, Medicinal)
- Sugar Browning (Caramel, Vanilla, Butter)
- Enzymatic (Tea Rose, Apricot, Garden Peas, Coffee Blossom)
When preparing for these tests, it was less about remembering what vanilla or maple syrup smelled like and more about distinguishing the scents in the oils.
For example, roasted hazelnuts smelled more like Nutella to me, and roasted almond smelled more like marzipan than raw almonds.
During the tests, smelling scent bottles repeatedly in a dark room can scramble your brain and make you overthink.
7. You started in 7th grade. How did Covid impact your testing?
OP: I passed more than half the tests on my first try and intended to finish them in the fall of 8th grade. But high school tours and applications got in the way.
Then a month before I was going to finish, Covid quarantine hit. All Q tests were canceled globally for almost two years by the CQI.
Even though we got an extension, taking the Q became harder. I’m now in a very rigorous high school, and it took weeks of working past midnight to make up essays and projects after missing school to complete the tests.
8. What was it like being in a class of adult coffee professionals?
OP: There were a lot of eyes on me. My age made me stand out among the coffee professionals attending Q training.
I was frequently used by Willem Boot as an example of the next generation of Q graders. It was great meeting people from around the world. Some traveled from France, Japan, or Saudi Arabia to attempt the Q test.
It’s a great global coffee community.
9. As one of the world’s youngest Q graders, where do you go next?
OP: I will keep cupping coffees, and in August I’m taking a one-week chocolate-making course at Boot Coffee.
I may also take a coffee roasting course. I’m also very interested in creating perfumes. I have a real addiction to cologne—the perfume aisle and candle shops are dangerous places for me.
I plan to do internships around the world. The future smells bright.
