Coffee Cupping Standards and Procedures! What Are the Key Considerations for Coffee Cupping? What Is the Purpose of Cupping?

Cupping, as a method, emerged in the late twentieth century, making it considerably younger compared to other coffee extraction methods.

Initially, people developed this method simply to quickly inspect the quality of commercial coffee. However, as time progressed, everyone realized that this approach is minimally affected by human factors and can provide relatively objective evaluations of coffee. Consequently, the application of cupping gradually expanded beyond green bean traders and coffee roasters. Both upstream and downstream coffee industries now employ cupping to test coffee bean quality. Even world-class coffee competitions have established dedicated cupping-focused competitive events.

Why FrontStreet Coffee is Discussing Cupping

Why is FrontStreet Coffee suddenly mentioning this? Because recently, many friends have visited the shop to ask FrontStreet Coffee about cupping methods, and they want to host their own cupping sessions at home or in their shops to try coffee evaluation. So today, FrontStreet Coffee will share in detail the cupping process and important considerations. Then, when you have free time, you can try it yourself and experience the difference between coffee during cupping and what you normally brew.

Equipment Needed for Cupping

FrontStreet Coffee will first discuss the equipment needed for cupping! If you plan to host cupping sessions long-term or frequently, you might consider purchasing professional cupping bowls and cupping spoons, as these can help us conduct cupping more conveniently. However, if you just want a simple experience, any container and any spoon will work.

In addition to bowls and spoons, we also need: several cups of clean water and several paper towels. The clean water is for rinsing spoons that have touched coffee, ensuring that coffee residue on the spoon won't contaminate the next cup; while paper towels are for absorbing water remaining on the spoon after rinsing, avoiding dilution effects on the coffee from water residue. (Like this↓)

If cupping in an unfamiliar environment, FrontStreet Coffee highly recommends everyone prepare their own small cups, scooping coffee into these small cups with spoons before drinking. This way, you can avoid the cupping session becoming a large-scale saliva-sharing event. Finally, there's the cupping score sheet, which comes in two types: SCAA and COE. You can find and print the corresponding sheets according to your needs or preferences.

Cupping Considerations

①: It's best not to wear perfume or apply strongly scented hand cream during cupping, as these will affect aroma judgment.
②: To prevent some subjective influences, it's best to conduct blind tasting during cupping.
③: Try not to express your subjective opinions on the spot, for the same reason as above - it can easily influence others.
④: Be bold! Score according to your own feelings.
⑤: Cupping should ideally be conducted at least 8 hours after coffee beans have been roasted.

Cupping Parameters

Unlike other extraction methods, cupping has standardized coffee extraction parameters. All cupping sessions will use the following parameters:

Coffee dosage: Typically 11g~12g
Coffee-to-water ratio: 1:18.18
Grind size: 75% passing through a #20 sieve
Water temperature: 94°C
Water quality: TDS of 75~250ppm
Steeping time: 4 minutes

Without further ado, let's begin cupping~

Cupping Process

1. Smelling Dry Aroma

When coffee beans are ground into powder, the aromatic compounds originally "trapped" inside the coffee begin to volatilize outward in large quantities. Therefore, what we need to do at this moment is "smell the aroma."

However, due to the increased surface area of coffee grounds, aromatic compounds will accelerate their volatilization, so we need to control our timing. It's most appropriate to finish the dry aroma smelling within 10 minutes. During the aroma smelling period, olfactory fatigue might occur. In this situation, we can appropriately take a deep breath of our own scent to eliminate the olfactory fatigue before continuing to smell the coffee.

2. Pouring Water/Smelling Wet Aroma

After we finish smelling the dry aroma, we can start pouring water. Use 94°C hot water to pour to the specified amount, then begin to experience the wet aroma of the coffee.

It's important to note that from the moment we start pouring water for the first cup, we need to start the timer, and when breaking the crust, we need to proceed in the order of pouring.

3. Breaking the Crust

After reaching four minutes, we need to start breaking the crust. This step requires a spoon, using the back of the spoon to draw three circles on the surface of the coffee liquid, with the purpose of gathering the coffee grounds together.

4. Removing Grounds

After breaking the crust, we need to take out another spoon and use both hands to scoop out the floating coffee grounds from the surface. The best way to confirm successful removal is to observe whether there's any foam remaining on the surface. If there is, it means the removal wasn't clean enough. A small amount of foam won't have much impact, but if there's a lot of foam, we need to perform another foam removal action because foam adheres to large amounts of fine particles, which can easily lead to a situation of "one sip coffee, one sip grounds."

It should be noted here that after each removal of grounds, the spoon needs to be rinsed with clean water, and then dried with paper towels to avoid contaminating other coffee samples.

5. Tasting

When the grounds removal is complete, we can begin tasting. First, use a spoon to scoop out the coffee liquid, observe the color of the coffee brew, and then start tasting. From high temperature to low temperature, try to experience each stage of the coffee several times. Both conventional drinking and slurping methods are acceptable (slurping is best during the high-temperature stage to avoid burning your mouth).

Similarly, after each time you scoop coffee with the spoon, the spoon needs to be rinsed to avoid flavor cross-contamination!

When the tasting is complete, you can begin scoring and then exchange thoughts with each other. Communicating at this time won't be influenced by others anymore, and everyone can confidently share their experiences from the cupping process.

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Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473