The kitchen experiment you see above was my attempt to prove that you could taste the difference between coffee beans harvested from one season and another.

Actually, it was Qualia Coffee‘s Joel Finkelstein who came up with the idea. Hesupplied me with both bags, which were filled with the same Nicaraguan beans, save for one difference: One bag’s beans were from the most recent harvest and the other from last season’s. Finkelstein simply marked the bags “1” and “A” so that I wouldn’t be biased when sampling them.

As you can read in this week’s Young & Hungry column, the experiment didn’t turn out as expected. But as you can also see from the story, the whole issue of “seasonal” coffee is complicated and even misleading. And yet: Wholesalers and coffee roasters alike have reasons for wanting to align themselves with the seasonal movement that has helped put Americans back in touch with the sources of their food.

You can read all about it here.