So, here’s a trendy term for you – Cupping!

There was no way we were going to get through an A-Z of coffee without hitting the term Cupping early on.

Cupping is one of those things that both looks and sounds cool, in a hipster kind of way. So we wanted to clear a few things up about what it really is, and what it isn’t! Today’s post is about our cupping philosophy at Alchemy, and how we believe it should be done - beards and flannel shirts aside.

The what, the why and the how

Learning how to cup is the single most requested form of training when we speak with Baristas. Everyone in the coffee industry, at some point, sees a group of people around a table slurping coffee from bowls with spoons and making noises like weird jet engines and thinks – “Wow – I wanna be like those guys”. 

One really important point to make here is that TASTING is not the same as DRINKING. Every food industry has a similar tasting process; wine tasting, olive oil tasting, balsamic vinegar, cheese, jamon, whiskey (I will use the Irish spelling as I have an Irish surname) and even cigars.

Cupping was originally developed as a methodology for detecting defects in coffee lots, and for grading coffees into categories to set pricing. Today it is used for comparative evaluation of coffee at every stage of life for a coffee lot, from farm to final drink.

Put simply; cupping is a systematic protocol for evaluating coffees to a predefined criteria. So there’s an official definition for you.

There are a few key words in our definition above:

Systematic

Cupping is like a dance with very defined steps – rather like a waltz. The goal is to take away variance so that each coffee is evaluated after experiencing the same process, so that the process itself doesn’t get in the way and influence the results more than the inherent qualities of the coffee.

Protocol

There are a couple of documented methodologies that have been widely adopted so that a farmer in Brazil, the QA/QC manager at the mill, the exporter, the importer, the roaster and the barista can all make use of the same method and have a similar expectation of the process and result. Therefore we have a common vocabulary to compare coffees throughout the process. 

The SCA (Specialty Coffee Association – formerly SCAA and SCAE) and the Cup of Excellence are the two protocols most used.

If you’re curious, you can check them out here:

http://www.scaa.org/?page=resources&d=cupping-protocols

https://www.allianceforcoffeeexcellence.org/en/cup-of-excellence/rules-protocols/

In essence for each sample of coffee we are evaluating, we are trying to brew:

1. the same amount of coffee

2. with the same amount of water

3. at the same temperature for

4. the same amount of time

Then we taste those coffees over the next 10 or 15 minutes, from hot to cold, and give them a score in categories such as:

-      Aroma

-      Acidity

-      Sweetness

-      Body

-      Balance

-      Cleanliness

-      Flavour

-      Aftertaste

-      Uniformity

These nine words are the Criteria from our earlier definition. You just know some of these words are coming up in later articles!

The reason we slurp the coffee with a spoon is to aerate it. You want to get your senses of both smell and taste involved, and the best way to do that is slurping – try it, seriously!

Subjective – not scientific

This is a good time to point out – cupping is subjective – “Based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.”

With our protocol we try to be as objective as possible, although we accept that we are human beings too. We all have biases that change constantly; they are affected by our moods, our health, our previous experiences, what we have eaten that day, and even how much sleep we have had.

I have been at Cup of Excellence competitions where a room of judges have had scores ranging from 84 -91 for the same coffee. We normally discount the lowest and the highest and average the rest.

So if it is so subjective – why do we use it?

Simply because it is the best tool we have to comparatively evaluate different coffees - and while it’s not infallible, it is a lot better than rock paper scissors!

Here’s a little cupping tip

It is best to cup in the morning, before you eat something weird for lunch, and before you get tired from your day’s work. It is also best to cup blind and in silence.

Blind means to not know which coffee on the table is which – that helps to prevent bias from creeping in. Cupping in silence (apart from the delightful slurping) means you aren’t guided by the guy next to you who says,

“Great acidity” or, “Wow that one’s sweet”.

We’ve all cupped with that guy.

After you finish cupping, then you can have a discussion about the coffees, but try to be as objective as possible. Commenting on Texture, Mouth feel, Acidity… you get the idea.

Let me give you an example of what not to say:

“Coffee 1 is tastier than coffee 2.”

This is not only total gibberish, but I’ve actually seen a junior roaster kicked out of a cupping session for saying that. Subjective statements are not helpful, don’t mean anything, and could make you look silly.

The great barista debate

So this naturally brings me to the point, should baristas cup coffee?

My official answer to that is, I don’t know, maybe – it’s up to you.

The discipline that comes from cupping teaches you to try and objectively evaluate the characters of different coffees. So it can be a great tool to help you develop as a barista.

But cupping a coffee is not the same as tasting espresso shots, if the thing you do at work is serve espresso shots.

Coffees that brew well or extract well in an espresso machine do not always cup well. Cupping and tasting espresso shots are different procedures that yield different results.

At the Alchemy roastery we cup all of our coffees, but we also brew them or extract them in the manner that we think they will be served. So coffees intended for filter are brewed by V60, Aeropress and batch brew to be tasted. Where as coffees intended for espresso are extracted in an espresso machine and are tasted both neat and with milk.

Every roaster has had at least one customer ask, “Can we send back this espresso coffee? We cupped it and we don’t like it.”

The answer is generally, “OK – but please put it through the espresso machine first and taste it, unless you’re serving it to your customers as a cupping. It really makes that much difference.”

So, when do we cup at Alchemy?

We cup when we are buying – either at origin or when offered a coffee by a broker. BUT, we never buy at the cupping table at origin – that’s just to get an idea. Anyone who has brought home a bottle of Ouzo or Lemoncello from a holiday knows that it is something about the experience you’re having at the time that makes it taste good. Sadly, it never tastes as good when you get it home. 

At origin you taste someone else’s roasting with someone else’s water at someone else’s elevation – and at origin that might be 1600m (a whole mile) in the sky. Alchemy’s London roastery is 16m above sea level, and I can assure you everything tastes different here. Have you ever drunk wine on a plane? Yep, same deal.

We always bring a green sample (or suitcase full) back from origin to roast and cup in our own roastery. This way we can be a little more objective.

We also cup when we are evaluating. This can be a production cupping to make sure each days roasting is consistent, or it can be a progressive cupping as the coffee stored in the warehouse ages, or as the weather changes from Autumn to Winter. We also continually evaluate our roast profiles to see if they need tweaking.

Cupping can be a great tool to develop your skills as a roaster, brewer or barista, as long as you ask yourself – is this what my customers will be tasting?

If you would like to check out our blends or our seasonal single origin coffees, you can see our range for home delivery here. Or for Café supply, find more info here. 

Next week we move on to another term for the letter C – watch this space! If you would like to receive our A-Z posts by email (and not much else - we won't spam you or share your details), you can sign up here for our newsletter.

In this video you can take a virtual tour of Las Mercedes, a farm we are in a Direct Trade partnership with. We love visiting our partners at source.