What is coffee cupping? How professionals taste coffee

How does cupping work?

You smell, steep, break, and slurp. The SCAA's cupping protocol, from its April 2005 revision, sets out the steps:

1. Smell the dry grounds within 15 minutes of grinding.
2. Pour water at about 93°C (200°F) directly onto the grounds, filling to the rim.
3. Leave the crust unbroken for 3 to 5 minutes, then break it by stirring 3 times while sniffing.
4. Start tasting at about 70°C, 8 to 10 minutes after the pour.
5. Keep tasting as the coffee cools, and stop at 16°C (70°F).

Wikipedia describes the tasting itself as slurping from a spoon so the coffee "is aerated and spread across the tongue."

What are the standard cupping measurements?

The SCAA protocol fixes the recipe tightly:

The protocol says the coffee should be weighed as whole beans, then ground straight into each cup. Five cups per sample let cuppers check whether every cup tastes the same.

What grind size is used for cupping?

A medium-coarse grind, a little coarser than you would use for paper-filter drip. The SCAA protocol defines it as 70 to 75% of particles passing through a US 20 mesh sieve.

Honest Coffee Guide puts cupping at about 470 to 850 microns, and other charts differ. To find that zone on your own grinder, start from a drip setting and go slightly coarser. BrewMark's coffee grind size chart shows where it sits among other methods.

If your grinder's numbers don't match a guide, the grind converter maps settings between grinders through the grind index.

What do cuppers score?

They score flavor attributes on a form. The SCAA's 2005 form covers 11: fragrance and aroma, flavor, aftertaste, acidity, body, balance, uniformity, clean cup, sweetness, defects and overall.

Each attribute is judged against what the coffee should be. The protocol says a bright Kenya and a low-acid Sumatra can earn equally high acidity scores. The same applies to body.

Scores add up to a total out of 100. The 2005 scoring key labels 85 to 89 "Excellent" and 90 to 94 "Outstanding."

Is the SCA cupping protocol changing?

Yes. On November 4, 2024, the SCA adopted three new standards, together called the Coffee Value Assessment. They replace the 2004 Cupping Protocol and Form.

The new standards cover sample preparation, descriptive assessment and affective assessment. The SCA says the system moves away from a single score toward more detailed data about each coffee.

How do you cup coffee at home?

Use the same idea with kitchen tools. Peet's suggests 2 tablespoons of coffee per cup with 6 ounces of water just off the boil. Break the crust after 3 to 4 minutes, skim the foam, then slurp from a spoon.

Peet's advises rinsing the spoon in hot water between cups. Cupping two or more coffees side by side is the point: differences jump out when the brew is identical. Grind slightly coarser than drip on a burr grinder, the same for every cup. Cupping is a form of immersion brewing, so the grind stays in the water the whole time.