How We Select Our Green Coffees and thoughts on “cupping” coffee…
How We Judge Our Coffees
We request many, many samples from the East Coast and West Coast distributors we use, to the point where I am a bit embarassed. We are not only looking for the best tasting coffees, we want unique coffees and good values. We don’t want to stand in the way of home roasting’s great potential: it saves money and it’s exciting to try unusual varietals. Many sites carry Konas and Wallenford EstateA "coffee estate" is used to imply a farm that has its own processing facility, a wet-mill. In Spanish this is called an Hacienda. A Finca (farm) does... JamaicaJamaica coffee can be excellent mild, lush coffee... sometimes. Like Kona and Puerto Rican coffee, it is soft, mild, clean and well balanced when it is good.: Ah... Blue Mountain, but they are not good values and they are not very exciting.
We test roast every coffee to a City (Medium) roast or about an AgtronA machine and a color matching system used for quality analysis generally in the food industry, and specifically in coffee: Agtron spectrophotometers are used in the coffee industry... 50, and some we cup at 2 degrees of roast to underscore roast tastes and distinguish them from originIn coffee talk, it refers to a coffee-producing region or country; such as, "I was just at origin." Of course "Origin" for most product we use is not... tastes. It’s important to observe the differences between acidityAcidity is a positive flavor attribute in coffee, also referred to as brightness or liveliness. It adds a brilliance to the cup, whereas low acid coffees can seem... and bittersweetBittersweet is from the language of chocolate, and describes the co-presence of positive bittering compounds balanced by sweetness. It is directly related to caramelization, but has inputs from... created by the roast as they combine to produce or reduce complexity. In some coffees, acidity seems to disappear quickly or become masked too easily behind the bittersweet.
Maria and I have different tastes in coffee, and our list of offerings reflect this. I like coffees that roast well in the City to Full City stages, and dislike the flatness of dark roasts. I also like wild coffees, something less predictable. Maria tends to have strong likes and dislikes, with little patience for dark roasts or earthyEarthy is a flavor term with some ambivalence, used positively in some cases, negatively in others.: Sumatra coffees can have a positive earthy flavor, sometimes described as "wet... coffees.
I am Tom, and I make all the decisions and do all the cuppingCupping is a method of tasting coffee by steeping grounds in separate cups for discrete amounts of ground coffee, to reveal good flavors and defects to their fullest..... You might disagree with me, and you might not like my taste in coffee but, your pallete is the one that truly counts!
Cupping in the Coffee Industry
The accepted method of tasting coffees is standardized and adheres to a specific set of guidelinnes so that empirical observations can be repeated from Budapest to Baltimore. The process is called “cupping.” Cuppers are trying to determine “cup quality,” how good a coffee tastes. The process involves rigorous attention to details; coffee grind, quantity, water temperature, etc. There are special spoons, cups, spitoons and other instruments used in the procedure. Roughly, 1/4 ounce (7.25 grams) of each coffee to be compared is roasted to a City roastCity roast is what we define as the earliest palatable stage that the roast process can be stopped and result in good quality coffee. City roast occurs roughly..., ground and put in little cups. First the cupperOne who cups, or tastes and evaluates, coffee.: A cupper is a person who performs the somewhat formal analysis of coffee quality, called cupping. See the definition of... evaluates dry aromaAroma refers to sensations perceived by the olfactory bulb and conveyed to the brain; whether through the nose or "retro-nasally": The aromatics of a coffee greatly influence its... of the grounds. Then 150 ml of 195 degree water is added and the coffee is allowed to infuse for 4 minutes. The grounds float to the top of the cup and are pushed downward (called “breaking the crust”) with the spoon while the cupper sniffs for aroma. In the second step the cupper raises the spoon to their mouth and takes in the coffee and a lot of air, essentially spraying the coffee all over their mouth. The cupper judges all the coffee’s character at this time; acidity, bodyAssociated with and sensed by mouthfeel, body is sense of weight and thickness of the brew, caused by the percentage of soluble solids in the cup, including all..., flavor… then they spit it out and try to sense the aftertasteAftertaste refers to lingering residual sensations in the mouth after coffee has swallowed. It might be distinguished from "finish" which is the final sensations of the coffee while.... When the coffee cools they repeat the second step.
Many books on coffee cover the cupping procedure in more detail. As most people who make good coffee on a daily basis know, you tend to have a consistent procedure without really trying too hard. I produce the same grind of the same amount of coffee, heat water in the same pan, and brew into the same jar with the same type of filters every day. I call this “cupping” on a practical level, and can tell immediately if one of my variables (bad grind, lukewarm water, dirty equipment, etc) is off. Anyone can taste the differences between roasts, varietals, and blends in a simple way, even without the formal cupping process. When customers complain about bad results with a certain coffee, I usually ask them to walk through their process and remove as many variables as possible – to try to isolate if the coffee itself is the problem. The formal cupping process attempts to do this same thing, to keep all variables constant in order to isolate the flavor of the coffee and evaluate it.
Of course, one factor that can not be isolated is the person doing the tasting, though most coffee professionals are able to train themselves to focus on the flavor they taste and hone in on its character. For me, I prefer to cup in the morning, when I am fresher. Cupping later in the day, after a heavy meal, around other strong odors, or when I am sick, all these factors can compromise my ability to taste and evaluate the coffee in front of me.
