What is Cupping?

Cupping is an important part of what we do to deliver quality coffees. As such, we often mention it without explanation of just what it is. Yet, outside of coffee professionals and serious connoisseurs, the term, "cupping," may still seem alien. So, what is cupping?

Cupping is a specialized form of tasting and is used to evaluate the character and quality of a coffee. It can be used to judge the quality of various lots of green coffee prior to purchase, to verify that a lot of coffee received matches a pre-purchase sample, to determine the best way to roast a given coffee, and to verify that each batch of coffee roasted was roasted correctly.

Typically for each sample of coffee a number of cups are filled with a measured amount of ground coffee. The cupper will smell these grounds then pour hot water over them. After a few minutes, the cups contain brewed coffee and a layer of wet coffee grounds floating on top. This layer is called the crust. Next the cupper uses a spoon with a large bowl called a cupping spoon to simultaneously break this crust and smell the aromas released on the break. Any grounds still floating are then removed. Now the cupper can take a spoonful of liquid from each cup and slurp that in such a way that coffee covers the inside of the cupper's mouth. This is repeated as the coffee cools.

As the cupper does this, an evaluation of various qualities is typically recorded along with notes on the character of the flavor and aroma. Qualities scored include the fragrance, acidity (this being distinct from a pH measurement), body, flavor, aftertaste, sweetness, uniformity, clean cup, balance, and the overall impression. Careful readers will note that this makes ten scored qualities which, when marked on a ten point scale provides a score for the quality of the coffee on a 100 point scale. Any taint of fault in the coffee such as overfermentation during processing or the green coffee going moldy has points subtracted from this score so there is the possibility that a remarkably bad coffee could score slightly negative. The final number, while indicative of a general overall quality level is not particularly useful as is. If the results of a cupping are to be communicated to others, it is more useful to provide all of the scores and comments.

Cupping is practiced by coffee professionals throughout the world and forms a foundation for the discussion of coffee. That a group of experienced cuppers can score a coffee with little variation among them forms the basis of several quality driven initiatives in specialty coffee such as the various competition auction programs and the Q auctions.

—Neal Wilson, last update March 4, 2007