Coffee Cupping, The New Gourmet Way of Tasting
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If you like this then please subscribe to the Coffee cupping is also known as coffee tasting and is the practice of observing both the tastes and the aromas of brewed coffee. Although coffee cupping is actually a professional practice it can of course be done by virtually anyone on a casual basis. With the growth in popularity of coffee, more and more opportunities are springing up to practice coffee cupping much in the same way as wine tasting.
Typically, a coffee cupping procedure is done by sniffing the coffee very deeply and then slurping the coffee so that it is forced to spread to the back of the tongue. The one tasting the coffee is trying to measure different aspects of the coffee’s taste, which is known as the body.
The taster is also trying to determine the acidity of the coffee, and the balance. Coffee beans have flavors that are determined by where they were grown. At times, tasters attempt to predict where a bean is from by the way the coffee tastes.
Coffee cupping is also a useful method for testing coffee for any defects or to create specific coffee blends.
For coffee cupping, the table is typically set with about 6-10 cups of coffee set up in a triangle shape. At the top of the triangle should be placed a sample of the roasted coffee as well as a sample of the green coffee. In the center of the table should sit a cup of room temperature water and a cup holding the cupping spoons.
Cover the green sample and roasted sample until the cupping session is over and the fragrance, aroma and flavor profiles have been noted.
You prepare samples to be cupped by placing two tablespoons of freshly roasted and ground coffee in a 6-oz cup. The grind should be somewhere between a French press size and a drip coffee size and roasted lightly.
To detect the fragrance and aroma during coffee cupping, while the filtered water is boiling, the coffee cuppers sniff the grounds and make note of what they notice. Fragrance is referred to as the smell of the grounds before the addition of water.
As soon as the water has boiled the cuppers add a small amount to each cup as well as to the cup holding the spoons. They smell each cup and make note of their observations as to the aroma.
After a couple of minutes have lapsed, they break the crust of the coffee using one of spoons and place their nose over the cup while pushing the coffee down. This provides the strongest aroma and offers you the best evaluation of the scent.
The coffee cuppers then rinse the spoon in hot water before moving on to the next coffee sample.
Next the coffee cupper will allow the coffee to cool before using the spoon to scoop up a sample of coffee. They then slurp the coffee allowing it to flow over their entire tongue. A large portion of the flavor found in coffee comes from the aroma the coffee gives off.
Now the coffee cupper writes down the flavor, acidity, aftertaste and body of the coffee. As they try each sample, they compare each of the cups to the others.
It is important that each cup of coffee is tasted when it is warm as well as when it has cooled to be at just above room temperature. This is because different temperatures can make coffee taste a different way.
Typically, someone doing coffee cupping will spit out the coffee after each evaluation to deter them from having an abundance of caffeine in their system, which can take away from their coffee cupping ability.
The best coffee cuppers are always trying to learn more, to grow in their ability to coffee cup well. Although these are basic guidelines, which most coffee cuppers follow, with experience a coffee cupper tends to develop their own set of techniques. Why not give it try at home today with a few of your favorite blends, it will give you a new awareness of their subtle tastes and differences!
