Coffee Cupping 101: Find Your Perfect Coffee Match

Ever wished you could taste coffee like a pro? That moment when you're looking at dozens of coffee options, wondering which one will truly delight your taste buds? Coffee cupping, the art of professional coffee tasting, is your ticket to discovering your perfect brew. While it might sound fancy, this time-tested evaluation method is something you can practice right at home. Let's unlock the secrets of coffee tasting together, using the same techniques coffee experts have refined over generations.

What is coffee cupping?

Coffee cupping is the standardized professional practice of evaluating and comparing coffee qualities through a systematic tasting process.

For roasters, it helps dial in roast profiles and develop new blends. For quality control teams, it helps maintain consistency across batches and identify potential defects. Cupping is used in coffee competitions and certifications, where professional judges evaluate coffees using standardized criteria.

The standardization means a cupper in Brazil can effectively communicate with a buyer in Seattle about specific coffee characteristics, using the same reference points and evaluation criteria.

Coffee cupping can also be done at home and for fun!

What to Evaluate When Cupping Coffee

When cupping coffee, professionals evaluate several distinct characteristics that together form a comprehensive assessment of the coffee's quality.

• Fragrance: The evaluation begins with fragrance, assessing the dry coffee grounds' smell, followed by aroma once hot water is added.

• Flavor: The main flavor notes are then analyzed, identifying specific taste characteristics like fruity, chocolatey, nutty, or floral notes, as well as any potential defects.

• Acidity: Acidity is evaluated not in terms of sour taste, but rather the coffee's brightness and liveliness on the palate – this can range from crisp and wine-like to soft and mild.

• Body: Body refers to the coffee's mouthfeel and weight on the tongue, which can vary from light and tea-like to heavy and syrupy.

• Aftertaste: Aftertaste is assessed by how long the flavors persist and how pleasantly they develop after swallowing.

• Balance: Balance considers how well these various attributes work together. A well-balanced coffee won't have any overwhelming characteristics that overshadow others.

• Sweetness: Sweetness is evaluated separately from flavor, focusing on the natural sweetness present in high-quality coffees.

• Uniformity: Cuppers also assess uniformity across multiple cups of the same coffee and the absence of defects. 

• Overall Experience: Finally, cuppers consider the overall impression, taking into account how all these elements come together to create the complete coffee experience.

9 Key Steps to Coffee Cupping

The coffee cupping process follows a precise sequence of steps to ensure consistent evaluation.

1. 

   Samples are prepared by roasting coffee beans to a specific light-to-medium roast level that best reveals their inherent characteristics.

2. The beans are then ground to a standardized coarse size just before evaluation, with identical amounts (typically 8.25 grams) placed in identical cups.

3. Hot water (200°F) is poured over the grounds, starting a timer.

4. During the first 3-5 minutes, evaluators assess the coffee's fragrance and observe the "bloom"–the bubble formation as CO2 is released.

5. Next comes the crucial "breaking the crust" step, where evaluators use spoons to break through the floating layer of grounds, releasing trapped aromas which they evaluate by getting their nose close to the cup.

6. The grounds are then removed from the surface, and the coffee is allowed to cool for several minutes until it reaches around 160°F.

7. During the tasting phase, evaluators use special deep spoons to slurp the coffee vigorously, spraying it across their palate while incorporating air. This technique ensures the coffee touches all tasting zones of the tongue and helps volatilize aromatic compounds.

8. Multiple passes are made over the cooling coffee, as different characteristics become more apparent at different temperatures. 

9. Evaluators typically rotate through multiple cups of the same coffee to assess consistency and often cleanse their palate with plain water between samples.

Try Coffee Cupping with San Francisco Bay Coffee Varieties

Ready to put your new coffee cupping knowledge into practice? San Francisco Bay Coffee offers the perfect starting point for your tasting journey. Our dedication to quality shines through in our rigorous two-stage evaluation process–testing beans both at origin and again at our Lincoln, CA facility ensures you're getting nothing but the finest coffee for your cupping adventure.

Starting your home cupping journey is simple. Choose a few different San Francisco Bay Coffee varieties and follow our steps above, scaling down to what works for your kitchen. While professionals use 8.25 grams of coffee to 150ml of water, you can start with simple ratios like two tablespoons of coarsely ground coffee per cup. The key is consistency between samples.

Remember, there's no wrong way to experience coffee. Your palate is unique to you. If you’re feeling curious, give coffee cupping a try, and have fun discovering the subtle differences between varieties.