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What is Coffee Cupping?
Coffee cupping is used world wide as the standard and systemized way of evaluating coffee. Have you ever looked at a bag of specialty coffee and wondered where they get all those crazy flavor notes from? A large part of that is from cupping. There are other aspects of that as well, like the coffee flavor wheel (course on that as well), and brewing the coffee, but cupping the coffee gives us a direct water to coffee contact thus creating a more "pure" sample of the roasted coffee.
Cupping is also used for quality inspection of the coffee prior to being purchased from a farm or importer. Bags of coffee are usually shipped in 60 kg (~132lbs) bags and come from so many farms all over the world. Instead of having to trial and error and buy every single bag from every single farmer, you can order samples of the bags and roast them on a "sample roaster", to then cup the coffee and inspect the quality before you make a big purchase. Some coffee roasters even get the chance to see the coffee cherries picked, de-pulped, processed, roasted, and cupped all at the coffee farm itself. This makes buying good quality coffee a lot more accessible.
Cupping is literally taking a bowl, putting ground coffee inside, filling it with water, letting it sit, and evaluating the coffee at different stages of the brewing process. When you pour the water into the bowl, you take note of the initial fragrance. While its brewing, you smell during different time stages and make note. When it finished brewing, you take a spoon and break the coffee "bed" and smell as the coffee grounds sink to the bottom. Once you break the crust and smell, you take another spoon and scoop the grounds out of the bowl as much as possible. Then lastly you take your same spoon and sip the coffee, trying to hit different parts of your palate to get the full picture of the coffee you are brewing with.
The specifics of the process is what is more standardized. Typically, you would use a porcelain cup that holds exactly 7.5 oz (170 grams), water from a kettle that is temperature controlled, and spoons that mirror almost what a soup spoon would look like. This is all created by the Specialty Coffee Association, or the SCA, and we will show you the exact protocols later in the section.
Cupping is also used for quality inspection of the coffee prior to being purchased from a farm or importer. Bags of coffee are usually shipped in 60 kg (~132lbs) bags and come from so many farms all over the world. Instead of having to trial and error and buy every single bag from every single farmer, you can order samples of the bags and roast them on a "sample roaster", to then cup the coffee and inspect the quality before you make a big purchase. Some coffee roasters even get the chance to see the coffee cherries picked, de-pulped, processed, roasted, and cupped all at the coffee farm itself. This makes buying good quality coffee a lot more accessible.
Cupping is literally taking a bowl, putting ground coffee inside, filling it with water, letting it sit, and evaluating the coffee at different stages of the brewing process. When you pour the water into the bowl, you take note of the initial fragrance. While its brewing, you smell during different time stages and make note. When it finished brewing, you take a spoon and break the coffee "bed" and smell as the coffee grounds sink to the bottom. Once you break the crust and smell, you take another spoon and scoop the grounds out of the bowl as much as possible. Then lastly you take your same spoon and sip the coffee, trying to hit different parts of your palate to get the full picture of the coffee you are brewing with.
The specifics of the process is what is more standardized. Typically, you would use a porcelain cup that holds exactly 7.5 oz (170 grams), water from a kettle that is temperature controlled, and spoons that mirror almost what a soup spoon would look like. This is all created by the Specialty Coffee Association, or the SCA, and we will show you the exact protocols later in the section.
What is the Purpose?
As hinted above, the purpose of cupping is to be able to inspect quality of coffee before purchase and to detect and label the many different flavor profiles of coffee. To do this, it is imperative that each and every between batch protocol is copied as closely as possible. You want to eliminate the possibility of any outside factors effecting the cupping itself. Meaning water temp must be exactly the same, measuring the coffee to the same 0.01g every batch, and measuring the water out exactly. If any of these are not followed exactly the same, your control group (think of high school chemistry and experimentation!) will be effected.
The good thing is, cupping is mainly done by coffee professionals so the consumer doesn't have to be this crazy specific at home. You can just brew and enjoy the coffee that us as coffee roasters and a coffee shop have very meticulously had a hand in making sure it tastes like it says on the bags.
BUT!
Cupping is an extremely fun activity to do as a class or with a group of people. When/if you have ever been to or experienced a public cupping, it is an educational journey to see and taste exactly how we as a shop got to the results we did during our roasting and tasting. When we say a Natural Processed Ethiopia tastes like dried blueberries, we can hold public cuppings to have you all experience the process yourself and see how we tasted that exact flavor note! When you do a cupping as well, as mentioned earlier, looking at a coffee flavor wheel really does help with understanding the many different flavor notes that coffee can have (more flavor notes then wine!).
The good thing is, cupping is mainly done by coffee professionals so the consumer doesn't have to be this crazy specific at home. You can just brew and enjoy the coffee that us as coffee roasters and a coffee shop have very meticulously had a hand in making sure it tastes like it says on the bags.
BUT!
Cupping is an extremely fun activity to do as a class or with a group of people. When/if you have ever been to or experienced a public cupping, it is an educational journey to see and taste exactly how we as a shop got to the results we did during our roasting and tasting. When we say a Natural Processed Ethiopia tastes like dried blueberries, we can hold public cuppings to have you all experience the process yourself and see how we tasted that exact flavor note! When you do a cupping as well, as mentioned earlier, looking at a coffee flavor wheel really does help with understanding the many different flavor notes that coffee can have (more flavor notes then wine!).
SCA Certified Supplies
(This is the certified way to do this, if you wanted to try this at home, use anything that closely resembles any of these products, they don't have to be exact)
- 7.5 oz ceramic bowl
- 2 spoons (per bowl), large round almost resembling a soup spoon.
- Burr Coffee grinder
- Temperature controlled Water Kettle
- Scale that weighs in grams
- Timer
- Paper (mostly outlines to fill out) to take notes while cupping
- Cups full of water for washing off spoons
SCA Cupping Protocol
- Boil water to 200 degrees Fahrenheit
- Grind 10 grams of coffee (medium fine grind setting, about the size of a manual pour over grind)
- Pour the coffee into the bowls (Can do anywhere from 1-6 different samples, but usually no more then 6)
- Sniff the fragrance of the ground coffee before you pour the water in. Make note of what you smell.
- Start timer, and pour 170 grams of water over the coffee grounds in a circular motion, making sure the water completely saturates all sections of the bowl and coffee.
- Smell the aroma of the saturated coffee grounds after pouring, taking note of any aromatics that stick out. (ex.: sweet, fruity or blueberry, apricot)
- Wait 4 minutes, then take your spoon and "break the crust" that formed at the top of your bowl. Take the bottom side of the spoon and push down on the surface, bring spoon back up and repeat on another section, taking note each time of the aroma that the coffee gives each time.
- Take your second spoon and in reverse circle form, bring both spoons together and skim the coffee out of the bowl. Scoop repeatedly until almost no more coffee is on your spoons.
- After scooping, wash your spoon off and take that same spoon to the bowl, press the spoon down to get brewed coffee onto your spoon. Bring the spoon to your mouth and slurp the coffee. Essentially "spray" the back of your palate by slurping the coffee. (do this step again around the 9 minute mark when the coffee has really cooled down),
- You can either swallow the coffee, or you can spit the coffee out into a "spit cup". The whole purpose is to sense and taste flavor not to over-caffeinate you. There is no shame in spitting it out, it is strongly encouraged.
- That's it! You have completed the cupping and can now confidently make a decision on whether or not you want to buy more of this coffee, or get specific flavor notes that your roasting may have brought out!
The entire time of cupping, from the smelling to the actual tasting, take note of anything that stands out. What is the mouthfeel of the coffee? Is it sweet? Does it smell like a fruit or does it have some darker chocolate tones? Take as many notes as you can. Look at the coffee flavor wheel while your tasting to see if it can help you put a name to the flavor you are tasting. Doing this over and over again (whether through offered cuppings or by yourself, it will help sharpen your vocabulary and palate to taste these notes again when you drink other coffees in the future.