Image by flickr user Matt BiddulphImage by 20080625cupping.jpg Get to know your beans at a coffee cupping.

Charleston Coffee Roasters is holding a limited-seating coffee cupping every third Thursday, at 12:30 p.m.

What is coffee cupping? It lets you get to know the tastes and aromas of coffee. You do it by taking in the aroma of the dry nuts, then inhaling the aroma of the steeping beens, tasting the foam, and, finally, by slurping and spitting back out the coffee.

Ethiopia, Tanzania, Panama, Indonesia beans will be sampled at their Huger Street facility. It's free, but only about 10 can attend.

There's a mini-guide to the practice on Wikipedia.

If you can't make it to one of the cuppings, you might consider one of their roasting tours and tastings, held every third Friday.