Interpreting the Latest 2023 SCA Cupping Form with Bilingual Version Diagrams | How to Conduct Coffee Quality Assessment: Coffee Cupping?

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After the Best of Panama (BOP) competition concluded last year, Mario Fernandez, Technical Officer of the SCA Specialty Coffee Association (Mario for short), shared the following at an estate reception:

"The SCA cupping form, as a standard widely used across the global coffee industry to measure coffee value, has not been updated for a very long time. In the twenty years since this form was invented, the coffee industry has changed tremendously, and sensory science has continued to develop and advance.

These days, more and more people are asking that 'sweetness' be added to the SCA cupping form as one of the coffee sensory evaluation items (scoring items). We also realize that it is time for the sensory evaluation items on the form to change."

The latest cupping form was also released as a beta version by the SCA in mid-April this year. Below is the original English version of the latest 2023 SCA cupping form (BETA/test version):

The Three Questions of Sensory Evaluation

In his presentation, Mario pointed out that when judging whether a cup of coffee is good or bad through sensory means, it really comes down to three questions: Can you taste a difference? What flavors can you taste? And do you personally like it? These three questions correspond to discriminative judgment, descriptive judgment, and affective judgment respectively.

From the standpoint of sensory science, mixing three different types of sensory evaluation together is actually not recommended... yet the existing (old) version of the SCA cupping form has exactly this problem.

(The old-version SCA cupping form)

In the old version of the SCA cupping form, "Body" and "Balance" rely on affective judgment, "Uniformity" relies on discriminative judgment, and "Intensity" relies on descriptive judgment.

The New Coffee Value Assessment System

To solve this problem, Mario explained that descriptive vocabulary and a set of additional key questions would be added to the original cupping form. Building on five comprehensive perspectives - green bean grade, descriptive judgment (used to evaluate flavor performance in coffee), affective judgment (used to evaluate one's personal impression of coffee quality), external attributes, and discovered value - the SCA then developed a new coffee value assessment system.

The Latest 2023 SCA Cupping Form (Chinese Translation)

Below is the Chinese translation of the latest 2023 SCA cupping form (test version):

Mario also noted that with these items interspersed throughout, bias caused by mixing the three types of judgment can be greatly reduced, and people can understand their sensory judgments for each type more clearly and score more fairly.

Image source: SCA official website

Original download link: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/584f6bbef5e23149e5522201/t/64414f6fa5898f4b63f12ac5/1682001782075/SCA+Coffee+Value+Assessment+Protocol+-+BETA+-+April+2023+-+Reduced+and+Secured.pdf

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Panama sits in Central America, with its coffee-growing zones concentrated in the west of the country: Boquete, Volcan, Santa Clara, and Piedra de Candela. Boquete and Volcan are the two specialty regions you will hear about most often. Both lie in the Chiriqui province, right in the heart of the coffee belt, blessed with fertile volcanic soil and old-growth forest. If you want to cup like a pro and practice with the new SCA form, a floral, high-acidity Panama Geisha-style lot is the perfect calibration coffee.

Start with FrontStreet Coffee's Boquete washed Geisha. Clouds frequently drift between the mountains of Boquete, keeping days humid and nights cool, and the fertile soil around the Baru volcano makes this prime Geisha country. These beans grow at 1,600 meters, where slower ripening and richer nutrient uptake produce an aromatic, layered cup: jasmine florals, green tea, honey, citrus, and orange - exactly the kind of clarity that rewards a careful, structured cupping session.

For a more budget-friendly option with half Geisha lineage, FrontStreet Coffee's Panama washed Butterfly (Huadie) blends Geisha, Caturra, and Catuai, grown on the Baru volcano in Boquete. The local microclimate brings abundant rain and a big day-night temperature swing, and the region's volcanic rock soil and meticulous harvesting and processing give the coffee excellent body, bright citrus acidity, and a jasmine aroma worthy of the Geisha name. At the top end, FrontStreet Coffee also offers Esmeralda Estate Red Label Geisha - harvested from a single plot above 1,700 meters and required to cup at 91 points or higher - a refined orange-blossom honey character that makes an ideal reference coffee for any serious cupper.