THOUGH wine tastings seem to have become less pretentious in recent years, it’s still rare to hear a top varietal compared to Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. But at coffee tastings  known to aficionados as cuppings  there is no prescribed lexicon, and a lot more room for whimsy.

One Monday night at Joe, a West Village cafe, a group of coffee enthusiasts crowded around Erin Meister, a barista, as if they were graduate students and she were a professor. The eight New Yorkers, who had paid $20 apiece to taste three coffees, each from a different country, listened intently.

They sniffed and slurped. Then came the tricky part: finding the mot juste to describe the flavors. “I thought the Kenya had hints of curry and cedar,” began Ms. Meister, 26, who is also a copy editor and the writer of a coffee blog called Meet the Press Pot (meetthepresspot.blogspot.com).

“I tasted nuts and bark in the Guatemalan,” said Katsu Tanaka, 50, who plans to open a coffee shop in Japan. “And basil and jasmine in the Sumatra.” A hush fell over the room; perhaps the others were intimidated by Mr. Tanaka’s sophisticated palate.