Understanding Our Coffee Reviews

Cupping is an evaluation tool used by coffee professionals to assess coffee. During a cupping session, the taster generally evaluates a coffee in three different states: the dry grounds (fragrance), wet grounds (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...) and taste using a “cupping” spoon (basically, a large soup spoon). When tasting via the cupping method, the coffee is slurped from the spoon in order to spread the coffee across your tongue’s flavor receptors which helps to parse out different flavor notes.
Judging coffee in this way allows you to move through a large volume of coffee samples quickly and invites you to take a deeper look at quality both good and bad than if you were to solely taste it brewed. We also use the cupping method when writing coffee reviews and coming up with scores.

The cupping graph is a spider graph comprised of 10 categories given a numeric value that add up to the final score.

The 10 flavor attributes we judge are Fragrance, 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..., BrightnessA euphemistic term we use often to describe acidity in coffee. A bright coffee has more high, acidic notes. : A euphemistic term to describe acidity in coffee...., Flavor, 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..., FinishSimilar to aftertaste, but it refers to the impression as the coffee leaves the palate. Aftertaste is the sensations gathered after the coffee has left the mouth. We..., SweetnessSweetness is an important positive quality in fine coffees, and is one of five basic tastes: Sour, Sweet, Salty, Bitter, Savory (Umami). In coffee, sweetness is a highly..., Clean CupClean cup refers to a coffee free of taints and defects. It does not imply sanitary cleanliness, or that coffees that are not clean (which are dirty) are..., Complexity, Uniformity

We judge using the standard cupping method outlined above, and generally roast each coffee to at least 2 different roast levels in order to see how it tastes under different roast profiles.

Each category is rated by level of intensity on a scale of 1-10 (10 is the highest level of intensityWe have a simple scale to rate intensity in our coffee reviews, from Mild to Bold. Low intensity does not mean low quality!: We have a simple scale...). Other than the Fragrance, Aroma and Flavor, the categories avoid expressing personal preference. What I mean by that is that even though a coffee may score 9 out of 10 in body or acidity, for example, that doesn’t speak to it’s “goodness”, as that will depend on the personal preference of the coffee drinker.

No. The Cupping Graph may give you an idea of how sweet, bright and 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" a coffee is. But it won’t step farther out on the flavor branch and provide descriptors. That’s what the Flavor Graph and cupping notes are for.

Good question. We’ve already stated there are 10 categories with a maximum of 10 points each, which equals a total possible score of 100. The Cupper’s Correction gives us the option to boost the overall score up to 10 points more (totaling 110 possible points) in order to help express how good we think a coffee is regardless of how the flavor attributes add up.

Quite simply, not all coffees we love will score high based on the sum of the attribute scores in the cupping graph. Take a dry processDry process coffee is a method for taking the fruit from the tree to an exportable green bean. The whole intact coffee cherry is dried in the sun... Ethiopia for example, where the Brightness and Clean Cup categories are likely to score very low. Padding the Cupper’s Correction helps to bring the final score to a level that matches our enthusiasm.

We may also use Cupper’s Correction to express how a coffee scores within the context of that specific 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.... For BrazilBrazil is a coffee giant . As Frank Sinatra sang, "they grow an awful lot of coffee in Brazil".: Brazil is a coffee giant . As Frank Sinatra... coffees, for example, we might enlist the Cupper’s Correction to show that within the context of other Brazil coffees, this particular lot scores 87 points (or 85.8 as the example graph above shows).

In general, a coffee with a high Cupper’s Correction score isn’t likely to be at the same quality level as a coffee with the same score but with low to no Cupper’s Correction value factored in. But that doesn’t mean one is better than the other, which again, comes down to personal preference.

The flavor graph deals with how a coffee actually tastes when roasted to the roast levels in our review. Other than Body, the flavor graph categories are types of flavors, rather than attributes.

In our experience, these are a few of the most common flavor types used to describe coffee. Rather than be too specific, we settled on these 10 that act more like categories of flavors. Under each category there are a multitude of more specific flavors, and what you pick up on will heavily depend on flavors you’re familiar with (i.e. “berry” types – blueberryBlueberry flavors in coffee take different forms. Dried blueberry was something we first encountered in natural Harar coffee from Ethiopia. It seemed to be most potent in fresh..., cranberry, lingonberry, gooseberry, etc).

We rate the flavor types on an intensity scale of 0 to 5 points. Do you taste “berry” in the cup? If yes, what is the intensity level? Zero indicates that flavor type isn’t tasted at all, whereas 5 is the maximum level of intensity.

Seeing that the cupping graph only partially defines taste, we added the flavor graph as a way to flesh out what can be expected in the cup. Together, they are quite effective in offering a quick impression of green coffees at a glance. I would discourage to only use these tools when making buying decisions, as only the full cupping notes lay out the most precise description of our coffees.

Visually, these types of circular, radar graphs should help you to identify difference from one coffee to the next based on its shape. In the case of the cupping graph score, the spider graph visually represents intensity and balanceSuggests a harmony and proportion of qualities, and implies mildness since no one quality dominates.: Balance is both an obvious and slippery taste term. It implies a harmony.... If all of a coffee’s attributes score closely, the shape will be a circle, rather than show any points jutting out from the center.

In the image above, you can actually see that the flavor characteristics of the Costa RicaCosta Rican coffee is typically very clean, sweet, with lots of floral accents. hey are prized for their high notes: bright citrus or berry-like flavors in the acidity,... coffee are balanced, as they are all about the same level of intensity, and the shape is about as close to a circle as a spider graph can get. The Java graph shows less balance, with low scores in categories like Brightness and Clean Cup giving the graph shape sharp, jutting points that are far from circular.

Not exactly. With the flavor graph, the intensity of each flavor type is represented in the length of the bar. Not all attributes have to be represented (or equally represented) for the coffee to be balanced. The levels of Sugars and Cocoa categories will give you some idea of how balanced the coffee’s core cup characteristics are, but are still not as precise in conveying balance as the cupping graph.

Not likely. Using the JavaThere are several types of Abyssinia variety coffee, but they are not from Ethiopia but rather Indonesia. Abyssinia 3 = AB3.  PJS Cramer, a Dutch plant researcher, introduced this variety... flavor graph in the above image as an example, the coffee appears to be rusticA general characterization of pleasantly "natural" flavors, less sophisticated and less refined, but appealing. : What is Rustic? This is a general term we came up with... Dried..., big bodied and heavily weighted in cocoa. But what kind of cocoa/chocolate is present in the cup and at what roast levels? Does it have rustic flavors like rice syrup, or mossy/herbal notes? There are a lot of unanswered questions about how the cup flavors present that can only be answered by reading the full Cupping Notes.

This question comes up a lot. If you’ve read everything leading up to this point, hopefully you’ve answered this question already! In short, coffee scores say little to nothing about how a coffee actually tastes.

If you buy an Ethiopia solely because it scores 93 points but hate acidic coffee, you’re going to be very disappointed. Same goes for if you buy an 88 point Sumatra because you only buy 88+ coffee, but don’t enjoy rustic sweetness, you will also be left wishing you’d read the review!