Cupping: How to Taste Coffee Like a Pro at Home
Tasting coffee, or cupping as it's called, plays an important role in the world of coffee. In the countries of origin (exporting countries), where coffee is grown, it's how the quality of the product is checked. In importing countries, with us consumers, buyers use cupping to verify that the delivered quality matches the order. Roasteries define through cupping which beverage they want to roast the coffee for. And we at home can find out whether we like the coffee.
This article explains how you can taste coffee at home and contextualizes the significance and use case of cupping. What is a cupping?
What is a Cupping?
A cupping is the method used for tasting green coffee. For this, a coffee sample is roasted according to a preset standard, ground, and tasted by slurping the coffee. The standardized process makes it possible to evaluate and compare coffee objectively.
Ten different attributes are examined, each of which can achieve a maximum score of 10 points - a total of 100 points. In addition to aroma and taste, acidity, body, aftertaste, balance, and overall impression are evaluated. Sweetness, uniformity, and cleanliness round out the attributes to be assessed.
Starting in October 2025, a new scoring sheet will be introduced. The Coffee Value Assessment, or CVA for short, is something we've discussed and analyzed in detail here.
Simple Step-by-Step Cupping Guide
Briefly and concisely, here's the basics of cupping for home or commercial use. Taste coffee like the professionals with ease. Tip: Read through the entire guide first before you start.
Your Preparation
Foreign odors impair sensory perception.
If you want to sensorily analyze coffee (or wine and beer), make sure there are no foreign odors in the room. After all, the scent of roses, linden blossoms, and jasmine should come from your coffee, not from your perfume.
What You Need:
- 1x grinder
- 1x cupping spoon or tablespoon
- 1x cup or glass 200ml (if smaller or larger, maintain brew ratio)
- 1x cup or glass to rinse the spoon (size doesn't matter)
- 1x kettle
- 200ml soft water (for example Volvic, Black Forest)
- 12g coffee (or brew ratio 1:16.66 = 6g coffee per 100g water)
- Paper and pen
- Stopwatch
The Basics of Cupping - Short and Sweet
- Grind coffee polenta-fine (700-1000 micron)
- Smell the dry grounds
- Heat water to 93-96°
- Start the stopwatch and pour water to the top over the coffee, wetting all the grounds
- Smell the crust
- After 4 minutes, break the crust
- Skim off floating particles without disturbing the settled coffee
- Taste the coffee (see below)
- Record impressions - why can I identify this coffee again?
- Cleanup: Don't pour coffee grounds down the drain; strain through a fine sieve and enjoy the rest. Use coffee grounds as fertilizer for plants.
Rinse the spoon with water between each step.
The Individual Cupping Steps Explained in Detail
Notes
In a cupping, it's essential to record what you taste in notes. This can be done using an official SCA score sheet, in a personal notebook, or a cupping app. What's important is that through your notes, you can recognize the coffee again. At a professional level, this is done on an objective basis. At home, feel free to let your subjectivity flow in, after all it's about whether you like the coffee or not. But also note here what you particularly like about the coffee.
SCA Arabica Cupping Form
Number of Cups
For a professional tasting, 5 cups of individual coffee are brewed. The coffee is weighed and ground separately for each cup. This way, any errors or defects in the coffee can be identified and named. The uniformity of the coffee is assessed. If only one cup were poured, you wouldn't know if the suspected off-flavor is actually one, or if the entire coffee smells that way and perhaps has lower quality.
Brew Ratio
For 12g of coffee we use 200ml of water. If you use a smaller or larger cup or glass, make sure to maintain the brew ratio. For 150ml of water, you take 9g of coffee (1:16.6). By the way: our brew ratio doesn't match the specifications and standards of the Specialty Coffee Association. They recommend a brew ratio of 8.25g per 150ml, or 1:18. We prefer to taste a bit stronger because that's how the attributes come through better for us, and our preferred brew ratio for filter coffee is also 1:16.66.
Grinding
Grind your coffee polenta-fine (700-1000 micron). You can also use your hand grinder for this. Clean the grinder with a few coffee beans to eliminate any residue in the grinder before grinding the 12g for the cup.
Dry Grounds
Put the coffee grounds in your vessel. Smell the dry grounds and note your impressions. What aromas can you detect?
Water
On our YouTube channel we published a detailed video on perfect coffee water. We recommend a water hardness of 2-3 total hardness German hardness and corresponding alkalinity of 1-2 German hardness. Not sure if your water is suitable? Here you can see how to test your water at home.
Heat the water to 93-96°. Pour the water over the coffee grounds and start the stopwatch. Fill to the top and make sure all particles are wetted.
Smell the Crust
Smell the forming crust. Do your first impressions confirm? Do you find additional aromas?
Break the Crust
After 4 minutes, slowly break the crust with your spoon by pushing the particles from front to back. Don't stir, just push back. Repeat this 3 times. As you break the crust, the volatile aromas unfold. These dissipate quickly, so the aroma assessment must be done immediately.
Skimming
With your spoon you can now skim off the particles floating on the surface. They affect the tactile sensation and are bitter to boot.
Slurping
After another 4-5 minutes, take your first sip. As with wine tasting, we try to add air in cupping as well so we can perceive the retronasal aromas. This gives us the full bouquet and the complete taste profile.
With the first sip we analyze the taste and get a first impression of body and acidity. During the second slurp we pay attention to the aftertaste, the balance, meaning the harmony between the other attributes. With the third slurp we focus on the consistency of the coffee (did it become better/worse/more intense as it cooled?) and rate the overall impression.
Why Do We Taste Coffee?
Cupping is the method for sensorily analyzing green coffee and assessing its potential as roasted coffee. Depending on the growing region, variety, harvest process, post-harvest process, and the producer's interests, the coffee tastes completely different. Different parties along the value chain therefore have different reasons to thoroughly check the green coffee.
The Producers
Through cupping, producers check their work. Just as a winemaker repeatedly checks the quality of his wines during maturation, coffee producers do the same—only at the end of the entire process. At the end of a long journey from blossom through processing to green coffee comes cupping—and it decides between top or flop. The entire work on the coffee farm is reflected in a few cups and a single sip, showing the producer whether their effort will pay off. Based on the cupping and the sensory impression gained, the producer can now bring their coffee to market. And already knows for next year, in which steps they might optimize or whether adjustments they've made this year have already paid off.
Note: many coffee producers don't taste their coffee. Especially small producers have often never drunk their coffee the way traders, roasters, or consumers taste it. They lack access to training and equipment. As a result, many coffee producers lack important prerequisites to know the value of their coffee and offer it accordingly on the market.
The Traders
Traders or dealers trade in green coffee. They are the central hub in the coffee industry, whether on a small or large scale. However, more and more roasteries and producers are trying to skip the middlemen and buy or sell their green coffees as directly as possible. But this isn't as simple as it seems at first glance. When buying green coffee, the buyer is often the intermediary between producers and roasteries. The interest in tasting lies in selling buyers the desired flavor profile and quality. With modern traders, it's long been not just about quality, but also about sustainability aspects related to people and animals associated with coffee production. After all, coffee brings a lot of baggage from past and present times with it.
The Roasteries
With their profile, roasteries lay the crucial foundation for whether their customers share not only their philosophy but also their taste preferences and whether, depending on their personal standards, they shop with them for exactly that reason. Through cupping, the roastery decides which coffees to use for its finished products and what the characteristics of each roasted coffee should be. If an elegant espresso with delicate acidity, notes of honey, caramel, and citrus fruits is desired, the team selects a corresponding green coffee. Finding green coffees that fit both taste-wise and ideologically is probably one of the bigger challenges for a contemporary roastery.
The Consumers
Ideally, we drink coffee that knocks our socks off. But how do you find out which coffee tastes best to you? Whether you prefer subtle aromas or funky flavors? Which post-harvest process convinces you the most? Which flavor direction you want to enjoy at what time? Whether you notice a difference between different varieties and countries at all? One thing upfront: yes, you will. Consumers can also use cupping to find out which flavor profile is theirs.
Q-Grader - the Licensed Coffee Taster
A Q-Grader is a person who has successfully passed 21 sensory exams and thus receives a 3-year license as a certified coffee taster. What is unfamiliar to many of us is a respected profession in certain coffee-producing countries such as Honduras—with far more pay than, for example, a teacher. After 3 years, this license must be renewed. The license is obtained for Arabica or Robusta.
Further information on the Q-Grader including a video from Michel and Philipp can be found here. Among us coffee makers, David, Michel, Benjamin, Philipp, and Nadja are trained as Q-Graders, with Benjamin and Nadja holding both the Q-Grader Arabica and Robusta certifications.
Want to Participate in Our Next Online Cupping?
Sign up here if you want to be informed about future cuppings.
More topics on sensory
Learn more about cupping and tasting: Sensory Course
Test kits for water hardness determination buy in CH
Test kits for water hardness determination buy in DE
The influence of coffee processing methods on taste
