First Time Cupping Coffee
An art form that I only recently discovered despite years of coffee drinking
Despite being an aficionado of coffee for such a long time, I didn’t actually try coffee cupping until recently. If you’ve never heard of coffee cupping before, it’s sampling coffee made from different beans and scoring them based on various flavour attributes. It helps compare one coffee to the next and helps you discover your ideal cup.
I found a place that offered coffee cupping near where I live from the back of a bag of coffee I purchased. It was a really fun experience and has changed the way I drink coffee forever. It provided me with a framework for how to rate coffee I make at home which allows me to recreate coffees that I liked. In the end, I provide a way by which you can get started right now!
The story
I once bought a bag of specialty coffee from a nearby coffee shop. On the back of the bag, I read an amazing story about how the company came to be and who helps run the operations. Along with it, there was an email address with a prompt to join their regular coffee cuppings. Out of interest, I sent them an email asking if I can join their coffee cupping.
A couple days later, I got an email from them explaining that they had only been running private sessions which was roughly $40 since the pandemic started. They were planning free public sessions but they weren’t certain of a date at the time. Two months later, they got in touch with finalised dates for the public coffee cupping sessions. I signed up and eagerly waited for the day to arrive.
Upon arriving at the place, I was welcomed to a wonderful smell that only coffee roasters places have. It was a relatively small but cosy place in an industrial area. There was an espresso machine, a coffee grinder and 3 flasks which I later discovered were the coffees that we would be tasting labelled A, B and C.
The couple who run the place introduced themselves to the people who showed up for the tasting. The roastery seemed quite popular as there were people routinely dropping in either for a cup of coffee and a cannoli or for a bag of their coffee beans.
We stood around a round standing table and were each provided with a cupping spoon, a cup of water, a scoring sheetand a discard cup. First, we were handed three boxes containing ground coffee for each of the samples A, B and C from earlier. The aim here was to sniff the coffee and then write down something for each sample.
Next came the good stuff, we were each handed a cup for each sample of coffee. We were encouraged to slurp the coffee because our taste primarily comes from our sense of smell. When slurping, you aerate some of the aromatics that contribute to taste making the coffee taste better.
We were asked to assign some tasting notes based on a tasting wheel. The host mentioned that taste is subjective and that our palette is based on what we grew up eating. For instance, someone who grew up in a tropical region eating tropical fruits / vegetables would have a different palette than someone who grew up eating berries / root vegetables. Therefore, each person’s tasting notes are unique to them.
Then we were asked to score each sample based on various flavour attributes such as:
- Fragrance / Aroma;
- Flavour, aftertaste, acidity, body and balance; and
- Sweetness, uniformity and cleanliness.
The objective was not to overthink and give it the most professional score possible. Instead, the objective was to get numbers onto the scoring sheet. Over time we can slot various coffees into your mental database to better understand your preferences and tasting notes.
After scoring the samples, we were asked to give our thoughts on each flavour attribute for each coffee sample. At the end of it, I felt more capable of voicing information on taste better than before.
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How I’ve integrated it into my routine
I am a habitual and recreational coffee drinker. Ever since the start of my coffee which I’ve linked below, I’ve sunk deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole which is home coffee brewing.
On a normal day, I have two cups of coffee, one in the morning which is typically filter coffee and another in the afternoon which is made with one shot of espresso and some foamed milk.
During my morning cup of filter coffee, I bring up a scoring sheet which I have tailored to record flavour attributes, roaster information and country of origin on my tablet. I then proceed to slurp the coffee and note down some numbers against each flavour attribute. I tend not to overthink and primarily score the coffee against what I had the day before. At the end of it, I average out all the numbers and assign a final score. This helps me better understand my preferences and buy beans based on what I like. It also helps me:
- Dial in my coffee;
- Find my ideal roast; and
- Recreate what I liked best.
How you can get started
I recommend making a template of the form from earlier and tailoring it to your liking. It depends on how organised you like to be. This video is a comprehensive guide for how you can create your own coffee database using Notion. I personally recommend starting small and improving based on preference.
Once you have your recording method ready, you can now prepare your coffee however you like, and then appraise your coffee based on the cupping form. I recommend using an average to calculate the score as it helps easily distinguish between a cup you liked to one you didn’t like.
This way, over time you will build a database which can help you find your preference for coffee.
You could also choose to recreate a coffee cupping like the one I experienced in the roastery. It takes a bit more time and effort but could make for a good social event with loved ones. For more information on that, you can read this comprehensive guide for coffee cupping by Specialty Coffee Association here.
“Excellent coffee should have its own sweetness, and instead of suppressing bitterness the milk will obscure the flavour characteristics of the coffee, hiding the work of the producer and the expression of terroir that the coffee has.”
-James Hoffman, The World Atlas of Coffee
I’d love to hear from you, what was your key takeaway from this post? Are you going to make this part of your ritual too? Leave them in the comments below or tweet at me. Thanks for taking the time to read what I’ve created! I’ll catch you in the next one.
Until next time,
Tony
Additional Resources
- Specialty Coffee Association: Cupping Form; What is Specialty Coffee; Coffee Cupping
- Guide: Tasting Notes
- YouTube: Coffee Brew Logger
- Book: The World Atlas of Coffee
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