The SCA dedicated a lot of resources to roll out a new coffee cupping form. The question is why?
I have been chatting with coffee roasters and importers about the SCASCA is the newly formed global coffee association for Specialty Coffee. The former organization called SCAA was incorporated into the new group. The main commercial coffee group is... ...more launching this “new approach” to coffee evaluation, the CVA, centered on a new set of forms (yes, plural, for each coffee) and a 79 page guide selling the new approach.
In my conversations, there’s a couple recurring details: First, nobody I know has bothered to look at the new 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.... ...more forms. Two, nobody wants to look at the new cupping forms. In other words, nobody I know felt there needed to be a new approach to coffee evaluation. Three, most people feel annoyed that there is a new orthodoxy being imposed.
(Note: Crazy how long this little op-ed became. I kept coming back and adding more, probably repeating myself. Honestly I am not that bugged by all this because, ultimately we will just ignore the CVA and keep doing what we do. But yeah, just by word count it may seem I’ve gone bonkers over this. I promise I have not. … -T )
Cupping Form PDF Files
Where did this come from?
Apparently it came from the top down … not the bottom up. (That is rarely a good sign). There wasn’t a groundswell of discontent with the way we score coffee. Nobody was struggling with current method, and SCA responded on behalf of their members and coffee workers in general.
This is not the replacement of an old cupping form with a new improved one. It’s a different system, a different approach. It’s like needing a set of pliers and being handed a hack saw. It’s the wrong tool, it does something different, and it’s not helpful to most people
It seems the form is created to fit a different approach to cupping, an idea that is maximalist and totalizing, including so-called “extrinsic” factors that were supposedly hitherto ignored, yet influence the value of coffee. The form is made to fit that idea, not to fit the way people cup coffee, the way they record their experience, and how cupping/scoring is part of their approach to coffee. Nope, the new CVA imposes an idea of what we SHOULD be doing in coffee evaluation.
What’s wrong with the old scoring systems?
A coffee we drink for enjoyment isn’t well represented by a total number, or even a lot of separate numbers for various attributes, that are themselves rather arbitrary and abstract designations. On this we can agree, and it is no mystery to anyone who tastes and scores coffee.
The point of the form isn’t to represent the coffee it it’s totality. It is to abstract the impression coffee makes into numbers that, in context, have meaning. My numbers have meaning for me, Dan knows what I mean looking at my numbers, and XYZ coffee exporter or importer that I have worked with for years knows how I score, as I know how they score. The cupping numbers are a component of a more complexThe co-presence of many aroma and flavor attributes, with multiple layers. A general impression of a coffee, similar to judgments such as "balanced" or "structured" ...more calculation expressing interest in coffee, that exists in a social context.
That context is something which can’t be quantified on a form or in a data set (sorry AI!). It has built-in inconsistency, like the people who fill out these forms.
We don’t score globally across the board. We assign numbers within understood categories, whether by 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... ...more country, region, or lot type (single farm microlot vs regional blend for example). Context matters but it doesn’t need to be part of the form. It’s already communicated along with the coffee sample. (They don’t drop from the sky, you know). You get samples through extensive conversations, long email threads, phone calls, travel and visits. All those multifaceted communications contain coffee information relevant to a green sample. It’s called coffee sourcing, and that’s the social context I am referring to.
The numerical form ins’t perfect, but it works. It draws our attention to what is inside the cup, and little else. When we taste, things extrinsic to whats inside the cup is called a “distraction”. The purpose of cupping is to try not to be distracted and focus only on the coffee. That is why the numerical cupping form, and our terse additional notes, are a useful tool
What’s wrong with the new cupping form?
Our course, the primary issue is the intrusive impostion of a new form in the first place, like a shitty uninvited party guest who lets themselves in the front door. Furthermore from that, this shitty guest is arrogant … the worst kind of arrogance too, the smug and “virtuous” kind, that announces how it is “evolved”, that is, superior, part of the “new system is called the” Evolved
Nobody asked for the “end-all and be-all” cupping form that included an expansion of the term “value” to mean “all the things I love and cherish in my life, and what I also hope to have in the future”. Okay, maybe it doesnt go that far, but the idea to create a larger, expanded umbrella of meaning, including the taste of the coffee, a guided checkbox of language to apply to that coffee (subsuming our own ability to imagine and create language to describe what we sense), and the “extrinsic” factors that are also part of “value” means this system wants itself to be one thing: totalizing.
It want’s to do it all, contain everything that adds to “value” while also defining (and limiting) the range of that value at the same time. Currently, cupping is a practice where our senses become focused only on the contents of the cup we are evaluating. Outside of that is an incredibly diverse and complex process that is different in every instance, with every cupping, and with every company. We each find our own way to do this, our own approach, our way to evaluate coffee, to contact coffee sources, to select coffee and bring it in to the fold.
There’s no need to do this the same way, to homogenize the way we look at coffee, evaluate it, and communicate about it. The only reason to do that, to “get on the same page” on the external factors of coffee evaluation as well as the scoring itself, is so it can fit in a database. Ultimately this new form serves to make data aggregators happy, to make good database material across the supply chain, from producer to buyer, from global south the global north, from one consuming country to another, to make all the entries standard and comparable. It’s for data. It’s not for people. And as far as people I know, and myself, nobody sees the benefit of submitting a RIDICULOUS NUMBER data points for each sample when we have 30 coffees to cup.
That’s an inhumane increase in our work load. Your new form may be well-researched and rational, but it’s just a big unwelcome turd drop in the middle of my very long work day. It also makes no sense to do this work on paper any more. 30 coffees would mean 30 sheets of paper (2 on each side, yet each sample has 4 scoring sections of 1/2 page each = 2 sheets. So this pushes people into some sort of digital format, which means more money spent using someones platform, whether you want to or not.
And for all the “sciency-ness” backing up the change toward this form, conforming with other sensory science applications, there remains little that is empirically grounded about a cupping form… any cupping form. Question 1: what color is the coffee? green? blue green? yellow green? greenishA smell or flavor of fresh-cut green plants, vegetable leaves or grass, usually indicating fresh new-crop coffees that have not fully rested in parchment.: A smell or flavor... ...more? Check one box. WTF? Would that be any more empirical if there were color references, if we used Pantone chips? No, because lighting, light reflectance, and human vision, even with a color reference, are highly varied. So why even include this? And the same case could be made for most categories on the form. That is not improved by “check box” attributes. Present/Not present misleads as it suggests, and your strawberries aren’t mine anyway. Human sense doesn’t work according to these systems. Sorry!
Forms? We don’t need no stinkin’ forms…
While the anti-authoritatian impulse makes me respond to the unwelcome and top-down-imposed change on cupping forms, there’s a postscript to this that undercuts it all rather severely. People don’t use forms.
Forms may be the norm in competitions, in classes and trainings, and among a handful of “true believers” or those with lots of spare time and lacking a heavy workload. They may be used by some who feel it’s their due diligence, or who fear they are responsible to someone else who might audit them … that is that the teacher might check their homework.
For most, the number of samples we need to cup, the workload of the now-old SCA / Cup of ExcellenceThe Cup of Excellence is a competition held yearly in many coffee-producing countries, designed to highlight the very best coffees from each origin.: The Cup of Excellence (COE)... ...more type form, already too onerous, means we have adapted our own systems that integrate well with our daily workload reality. For example, at my own table samples are screened with descriptive notes on fragrance, 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... ...more, flavor, and a cupping score, all entered in a long, long scrolling Google sheet. Only when we do full reviews for our customer audience to we drill down into the many categories of cupping, and expand the descriptive language to fully flesh out our experience of the coffee. We do that for acuracy. We do that to sell the coffee. We don’t do it for ourselves, to understand the value of the coffee. We know that, based on may years of experience and our “tasting memory” that we bring to each cup, more or less.
At Dormans in KenyaKenya is the East African powerhouse of the coffee world. Both in the cup, and the way they run their trade, everything is topnotch.: Kenya is the East... ...more, where they cup 1000+ samples per week, as well as all the other labs in Nairobi, our simple Google sheet entries would be preposterous and impractical. They use a 3 number score (1 to 3 points) with no total score. They don’t even smell fragrance or wet aromaIn cupping, wet aroma refers to the smell of wet coffee grinds, after hot water is added. It can involve smelling the "crust" (floating coffee grounds) on the... ...more. They don’t break the cups. They don’t even write down their own scores. For speed someone else does that for them. Cupping is adapted to the situation it is used in. Cupping is not an end all. It’s a tool.
In fact, many exporter labs don’t bother to smell coffee, they just taste when the cups are cool. These are the people who do the real screeningRunning coffee through a screen with holes of a fixed size to sort beans for size.: Running coffee through a screen with holes of a fixed size to... ...more work on coffee, paring down the offerings, deciding what to show to whom. Buyers come in and have a highly curated experience that exporters set up for them.
As a buyer, most likely the SCA/COE form is available and offered at the exporter lab. They usually ask, “do you want a clipboard with forms?” My answer, “no, just a blank piece of paper please”. Why?
The purpose of a form is to have you focus on the aspects of the coffee, as a guiding path into the sensory experience. I don’t want or need that generally. I don’t want a guide … I want a blank sheet so I can see and experience what I feel is important in the tasting, and not be distracted or impeded by the procedure of filling out a form.
So imagine the new form with it’s yes/no checkbox attributes … that goes beyond guidance. It instructs you on the experience of taste, by constructing the terms you will see the coffee through. Checkbox forms are the new norm in a data intensive world, one where humans are simply ancillary sources for databases. (Consider that healthcare, in particular mental health care, is now procedurally done with checkbox “present/not present” forms, usurping the expertise and observations of the caregiver, so that care can become better “managed”. That means it becomes more efficient, costing less, and more trackable in terms of outcomes. Outcomes measure effectiveness, which translates as cost savings. It’s no longer a system focused on human suffering and care by humans. It’s a system of capital accumulation, to spend less per visit and make more for the shareholders).
Also imagine that the SCA form, 8-10 coffees per sheet, too slow and burdensome for most cup test scenarios, is now 2 coffees per sheet of paper, with 3 sheets of paper total to fill out. 3 sheets to cup 2 samples! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…. Yes I am sure on a digital platform that can become more efficient. Just like your doctor who has 10 minutes to spend with you and collects reams of data, perhaps looking more at a screen to read your record and input more data than actually care for you and your 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... ...more. Cuppers can enjoy spending little time actually focused on their experience of a coffee, and instead fill out paperwork / screens of data to help justify the “value” of coffee. Yes you can do that, or you can just learn to focus, learn to taste, and learn to make decisions … while also learning to form an intense connection with what you are tasting, to your senses, and the intimate and difficult task of finding the language to describe it. Digital devices and paperwork are obstacles in that process. Minimizing them is key.
Does it really matter?
I don’t think the change in approach to cupping by SCA will have much impact outside those who are attached directly to the organization.
Everyone is going to keep doing what they are doing. People have adapted coffee analysis to their own particular use. Cupping is a test, and the test is created, administered and performed differently relative to the situation. It depends on what the question is, what information we are trying to get, what we want to find out, what the use of that information is going to be.
There’s value in being aware of how to complete a full blown cupping form … and then adapting or ignoring all the parts that are useless to you, slow you down, and make your job unnecessarily harder. That’s the approach we have to the previous SCA/COE form, and how most everyone I know approaches it. I am sure it will be the same going forward, and little will change.
If anything it amounts to SCA expressing their consolidation of power, ability to change rules and standards, and little else. The impact is that those closely tied to the organization and events will have to get in line with the new standards. The rest of us will just do what we feel works best for us, no matter how much SCA tries to sell their virtuous new system, invent reasons this change had some historic of science-based necessity, or how insufficient and wrong-headed the old method of simply ‘focusing on what’s in the cup’ seems to be.
What is the cost of the change?
As I suggested, there is money and power in controlling standards and certifications. SCA thinks it is theirs to wield, and they have now consolidated the Q process and the standards for coffee evaluation under their banner. Yes, it is only $50 fee to SCA for a current Q grader to be certified with the new form. But the class+certification combo looks like it will cost anywhere from $650-$900 based on a quick search of those offering the update classwork. Many Q Graders are apparently pissed about this being sprung upon them without notice, whether they were near their 3 year mark to re-certify themselves, or had just completed it. Either way it is unwelcome by most it seems. Those who stand to gain are those who conduct classes and issue certificates. It means more business, I suppose.
The deal has SCA paying CQI a yearly licensing fee for 10 years and 5% of the net income from CVA fees collected. One of the more galling things is the term “Evolved” being used here, the “Evolved Q program” as if it is a natural progression, more advanced and “next level”. I would argue it is none of those things.
But the main source of power here isn’t necessarily monetary. It’s the power that’s flexed when an agency assumes it has the position to govern a process, to set standards, to say what the norms are and what the process should be. It’s the power to consolidate the competing CQI mandate (a separate and independent organization from SCA) into its own.. It’s clear that SCA is soft selling that, referencing how “1600 people” had input on the CVA development process, and soft-pedaling it with a whole video series telling the (highly selected) history and context of sensory science and coffee tasting. That’s part of establishing a right to dictate what comes next; it’s a way to own that right and make a virtuous display of the reasons to change the rules.
Even for a person like me who avoids political bodies and panels like the plague (was your high school ASB ever cool? no) , finding it a pointless waste of time to know who’s doing what at SCA/CQI/WOC etc etc… Even an ignoramus like me knew there was a big power struggle going on over coffee certifications and standards. Much like the opaque motivations behind unifying the US SCAA with Europe SCAE, selling it as something to benefit all members and the coffee trade generally, nobody I knew ever asked for it or desired a singular global specialty coffeeSpecialty coffee was a term devised to mean higher levels of green coffee quality than average "industrial coffee" or "commercial coffee". At this point, the term is of... ...more authority. If anything, people wanted to maintain regional differences. SCA has basically assumed all the functions of CQI as far as I know. Why? Ask someone else because I don’t really know or care.
Ultimately it probably happened because of indifference. People don’t see a trade association that really serves member interest anyway (at least not small companies) so whether it’s regional or global doesn’t matter much. Plus, people are busy because they have work to do, not dick around with this kind of stuff.
