How to Cup Coffee

Coffee Cupping in
Rwanda:

A Guide to Cupping
Coffee at Home
Coffee cupping is an essential evaluation
method for coffee roasters and speciality
coffee shops but also really good fun to try
out at home! It's a fairly easy to cup coffee
and you can read about it in depth on
the SCA website.

Equipment:
Bowls or glasses that hold 200-260ml of
water.
A set of scales
A coffee grinder
Cupping spoons (soup spoons work
well)
A timer

Ingredients:
Coffee (best to have a few different
types, or roasts for comparison)

Method:
1. Weigh out the coffee beans

Do this at a ratio of 8.25 grams per 150ml

of water. So if your cups hold 200ml use 11
grams of coffee.

2. Grind the coffee.

Do this slightly courses than you would for

paper filter brewing - (a course sand like
texture ideally).

3. Boil the kettle.

Make sure this is at a temperature of

around 93-95 degrees. If you don't have a
thermometer, let the kettle boil and wait
around 30 - 60 seconds.

4. Pour the water over the coffee.

Make sure that the water fully saturates the

coffee. Use a scale and fill the cup or bowel
with the amount of water based on the
correct coffee to water ratio.

5) Start your timer.

A crust should form on the top of the

coffee. Once your timber reaches 4
minutes, break the crust using your spoon.
It's best to use three movements of the
spoon to do this.

6) Skim off any remaining crust of

the coffee.

7) Once your timer reaches 10 minutes you

can evaluate the coffee by 'slurping' from
your spoon. It's important to 'slurp' in order
to aerate the coffee. Most of our flavour
perception is based around smell and
'slurping' the coffee will help to make sure
you are able to asses properly.

8. Keep tasting as the coffee

cools.

Remember - professional coffee cuppers will

spit the coffee out to avoid over
caffeination!

9. Evaluate the coffee..

When evaluating coffee professionally we

use the SCA cupping form. On this form we
evaluate dry and wet fragrance, flavour,
aftertaste, acidity, body, balance,
sweetness, clean cup, uniformity, defects
and the overall enjoyment of the coffee.

If you are new to this process the best

option is to just note down differences
between the coffees. Think about
sweetness, acidity, body and try to identify
some flavours that might jump out at you.
For example, a coffee from Kenya might be
bright, juicy with some berry fruit notes. A
coffee from Brazil might have rich chocolate
and nut flavours with less acidity.

Cupping coffee is a great way to learn more

about what you are tasting and to develop
your pallet. We hope this short guide has
been helpful and for more detailed
information please visit the SCA protocols
and best practices page.

Everything you need to

know to cup coffee at home
Coffee cupping is an essential evaluation
method for coffee roasters and speciality
coffee shops but also really good fun to try
out at home!

Coffee cupping is a controlled method that

allows you to taste coffees by eliminating
variables. This means you can evaluate the
actual flavours of the coffee and not the
effect that the brew method might have had
on the beans you are trying out.

So, why cup coffee?

The main reason we cup coffees is to
evaluate the quality of the beans. When a
producer would like to export their coffee
they will send samples out to potential
buyers who will then evaluate the coffee.
This evaluation of quality can have a
significant effect on the final price. In a
roastery environment, coffee shop or at
home we can use cupping to evaluate the
roast. It's a great way to determine if the
roast is too light, too dark or just right.
Finally, and this is the fun part, we can
simply use it to decide how much we like
(or dislike!) a particular coffee!

Above: Cupping coffee at the Dormans

lab in Nairobi, Kenya

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