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Cupping Coffee at Home: Equipment, Method and Building a Palate

Two spoons dipped into a cupping bowl.

Two spoons dipped into a cupping bowl. Photo: Nathan Dumlao / Unsplash, Unsplash License.

Cupping is the method the coffee trade uses to taste and assess coffee, and it can be done at home. This article covers the home version: what you need, how to run a session following the Specialty Coffee Association's current standard, how to taste safely, and how to build a vocabulary for what you taste. The professional system — the scoring forms, how the 2004 form was replaced, and the Q Grader credential — is covered in Coffee Cupping: The Professional Tasting Method.

Why Cup Instead of Just Brewing

Grind size, water temperature, pouring and the filter all change a brewed cup, so two coffees brewed in different ways are hard to compare. Cupping fixes those things: the SCA's standard sets the ratio of coffee to water, the grind, the water temperature and the timings, and every cup is brewed the same way, with the grounds steeping directly in the cup. The standard also sets the roast level and the resting time for the samples it is designed to assess. Cupping was designed to assess green coffee lots; at home it is a way to compare coffees side by side.

What You Need

The SCA's standard calls for the following:

  • Cups. Identical glass or ceramic cups of 200 to 350 millilitres, with a top diameter of 75 to 90 millimetres; all the cups must be of the same size, shape and material.
  • A scale reading to 0.1 gram. The kitchen scales tested by the consumer organisation Which? read in steps of 1 gram, and two of them had an extra 0.1-gram scale, so check yours; Coffee Scales: Why Weighing Coffee Matters explains why.
  • A grinder. It must grind slightly coarser than for paper-filter drip brewing.
  • Hot water at 93 °C, plus or minus 3 °C, and a spouted carafe to pour it.
  • Spoons. They are used to break the crust, skim and taste, with a glass of hot water to rinse them between cups.
  • Somewhere to spit. Tasters spit the coffee out rather than swallow it.

The National Coffee Association suggests bringing water to a full boil, turning off the heat and letting it rest for a minute before pouring.

The Method

These steps follow SCA Standard 102-2024:

  1. Weigh. Use 8.25 grams of whole-bean coffee for every 150 millilitres of cup capacity, weighing each cup separately; a 200-millilitre cup takes about 11 grams.
  2. Grind each cup separately, as close to tasting time as practical, slightly coarser than for paper-filter drip.
  3. Smell the dry grounds. This is the fragrance, the smell of the coffee before brewing.
  4. Pour. Fill each cup to the rim with water at 93 °C, plus or minus 3 °C, wetting all the grounds; a crust of grounds forms on top.
  5. Break the crust after 3 to 5 minutes. Stir about three times while smelling the vapour that is released: this is the aroma.
  6. Skim the grounds and oils from the surface with one or two spoons, rinsing the spoons in hot water between cups.
  7. Taste from about 70 °C. Slurp a spoonful so the coffee covers as much of the tongue and upper palate as possible, then spit it out, which avoids swallowing too much caffeine in a session.
  8. Taste again as it cools, in at least three rounds, until it is below body temperature.

The standard also recommends a medium roast, 63 on the Agtron "Gourmet" scale, rested 8 to 24 hours after roasting, and at most 6 coffees in a session. The 2004 protocol it replaced used the same ratio and temperature, with lidded cups of 207 to 266 millilitres, began evaluating the liquor at about 71 °C, and stopped when the coffee reached 21 °C.

How Many Cups

For the SCA's affective assessment, five cups of each coffee are tasted, so that their uniformity can be judged consistently. For the descriptive assessment, three to five cups per sample are used. On the 2004 form, cups that tasted different from one another lowered the uniformity rating, and the number of cups with a defect was recorded. At home, comparing two coffees with three cups of each stays within the standard's range for the descriptive assessment.

Watch: How To Cup (Taste) Coffee At Home — James Hoffmann

Tasting Safely

Cupping water is poured at about 93 °C. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission notes that most adults suffer third-degree burns from two seconds' exposure to water at 150 °F, about 66 °C, and that most tap-water scald injuries and deaths involve the elderly and children under the age of five. Tasting begins only after the coffee has cooled to about 70 °C, and the SCA's standard asks tasters to spit the coffee out. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies drinking very hot beverages, those above 65 °C, as probably carcinogenic to humans; it found no conclusive evidence that drinking coffee itself causes cancer. For tasting in company, the standard allows a sanitary variation: each sample has its own spoon, which is used to move coffee into a personal spoon or small glass from which each taster slurps.

Building a Vocabulary

Cupping also means finding words for what you taste. The Coffee Taster's Flavor Wheel, first published in 1995 and updated in 2016 by the SCA with World Coffee Research, is designed to be read from the centre outward: the most general descriptors sit near the centre and become more specific towards the edge. For example, a taster who finds a coffee fruity can ask whether the fruit is more like berries, dried fruit or citrus; in the World Coffee Research Sensory Lexicon, dried fruit leads on to raisin and prune. The wheel is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence, and the SCA sells it as a PDF. The Sensory Lexicon on which the wheel is based, published by World Coffee Research and created at the Sensory Analysis Center at Kansas State University, describes 110 flavour, aroma and texture attributes and is free to download and print for personal use. Every attribute in the Lexicon has a reference, many of them available in supermarkets, but references marked as aromatic must never be eaten or drunk. The SCA's own advice is to take notes and work on your sense memory. The wheel is covered in more detail in The Coffee Flavor Wheel: How Professionals Describe Coffee Taste.

What Scores Are For

At home, a score is optional. Under SCA Standard 104, a cupping score is one taster's overall impression of a coffee's quality, so it means something only when the coffee, the taster and the protocol are named. The SCA publishes the forms for its Coffee Value Assessment, and an online tool to calculate affective assessment scores. For beginners, the SCA runs an Intro to Cupping Workshop, and its education team suggests looking for public cuppings held by coffee businesses nearby.

Cupping Puerto Rican Coffee

Puerto Rican coffee is cupped by the same standard as any other: SCA Standard 102 is written for green arabica coffee and sets no separate rules by country of origin. Origin does enter the judgement, though: the 2004 form asked tasters to rate acidity against the flavour profile expected from a coffee's origin. No published cupping data for Puerto Rican coffee as an origin were located, and the Alliance for Coffee Excellence's results list no Cup of Excellence competition held in Puerto Rico.

Key Facts

  • SCA Standard 102-2024 sets today's cupping method; it superseded the 2004 protocol.
  • Use 8.25 g of coffee per 150 ml of cup capacity, with cups filled to the rim with water at 93 °C, plus or minus 3 °C.
  • Break the crust after 3 to 5 minutes, stirring about three times.
  • Start tasting at about 70 °C, slurp, and spit the coffee out.
  • Taste five cups per coffee for the affective assessment, and three to five for the descriptive.
  • The standard calls for a scale reading to 0.1 g.
  • The Coffee Taster's Flavor Wheel is read from the centre outward.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need special equipment? Identical cups, a scale reading to 0.1 gram, a grinder, water at about 93 °C, spoons and somewhere to spit.

Why slurp? So the coffee covers as much of the tongue and upper palate as possible, as the SCA standard asks.

When do I break the crust? After 3 to 5 minutes, stirring about three times while smelling the aroma.

Should I swallow the coffee? The SCA standard asks tasters to spit it out, to avoid swallowing too much caffeine during a session.

Do I need to score the coffee? Not at home; a score means something only when the coffee, the taster and the protocol are named.

Is there a typical cupping score for Puerto Rican coffee? No source establishes one.

Sources

Claims this encyclopedia could not source

  • That Puerto Rican coffee scores in a typical range when cupped. No cupping data were located.
  • That Puerto Rican coffee has a distinctive flavour profile as an origin, famous since the nineteenth century. No sensory data or provenance were located.
  • That five cups is the number at which one bad bean reliably shows up. The SCA gives five cups so that uniformity can be judged consistently.
  • That breaking the crust is the best-smelling moment in coffee. An opinion; no source.
  • A time off the boil that brings water to 93 °C. It depends on the kettle; the National Coffee Association suggests about a minute.

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Part of The Coffee Encyclopedia — the world's largest free coffee reference. Proudly sponsored by PuertoRicoCoffeeShop.com.

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