Coffee cupping is the standardized method used by coffee professionals around the world to evaluate the flavor, aroma, body, and overall quality of coffee.
Whether you’re a roaster, green buyer, café manager, or barista, cupping gives you a structured way to taste coffee and develop your sensory skills.
For baristas, cupping is more than just a quality control exercise. It’s a tool to understand how origin, roast, and processing affect flavor—and to learn how to talk about coffee in a confident, meaningful way.
What Is Coffee Cupping?
Cupping is a simple brewing method designed for consistency. It involves:
- Freshly grinding coffee into a cup or bowl
- Pouring hot water over it
- Letting it steep for four minutes
- Breaking the crust and evaluating aroma
- Tasting with a spoon, often while slurping
Unlike other brewing methods, cupping uses immersion brewing without filtration, allowing tasters to experience the full body, flavor, and aromatic profile of the coffee.
The Purpose of Cupping
Professionals cup coffee for several reasons:
- Green buyers evaluate lots before purchasing
- Roasters assess roast development and consistency
- Baristas learn how beans behave in different profiles
- Cafés choose which coffees to feature on the menu
- Customers engage in tasting experiences
As a barista, cupping helps you answer questions like:
- “What does this coffee taste like?”
- “How does it compare to our other origins?”
- “Is this roast ready to serve?”
It’s how you train your palate—and your confidence.
Tools and Equipment You Need
To set up a cupping session, you’ll need:
- Fresh roasted coffee (preferably 24–72 hours off roast)
- Grinder (burr style for consistency)
- Scale (accurate to 0.1g)
- Kettle (gooseneck optional)
- Hot water at 93–96°C
- Cupping bowls or glasses (200–250 ml)
- Cupping spoons (round, deep)
- Timer
- Rinse cups and hot water for cleaning spoons
Optional: flavor wheel, note sheets, scoring sheets.
Standard Cupping Ratio
The SCA standard for cupping is:
- 8.25g of coffee per 150ml of water
For most bowls or glasses (200ml), use 10–11g of coffee.
Use a medium-coarse grind, similar to that used for French press. The goal is uniform particle size to ensure a fair, even extraction.
Step-by-Step Cupping Guide
Here’s a structured way to cup coffee professionally:
1. Grind and Dry Smell
Grind each sample into separate cups. Smell the grounds—note aromas like chocolate, fruit, spice, florals.
2. Start the Timer and Pour
Pour hot water over the grounds, covering them fully. Start your timer. Let the coffee steep for four minutes.
3. Break the Crust
After four minutes, take your spoon and gently push the crust down. Smell the burst of aroma that’s released. This is called the break and is one of the most aromatic moments.
Rinse your spoon in hot water between each break to avoid contamination.
4. Skim the Surface
After the break, use two spoons to skim any remaining foam or floating grounds off the surface.
5. Taste
Once the coffee cools to about 60°C, begin tasting. Slurp the coffee off your spoon to spread it across your palate and aerate it.
Evaluate:
- Aroma
- Acidity (type and intensity)
- Body (weight and texture)
- Flavor (what you taste on the tongue)
- Aftertaste (what lingers once swallowed)
Take notes on each quality.
Slurping: Why It Matters
Slurping may sound odd, but it’s essential in cupping. It helps:
- Distribute coffee across your entire tongue
- Combine flavor and aroma
- Cool the sample for clearer tasting
Don’t be shy. In cupping, slurping loud and proud is totally professional.
Tasting Notes vs. Flavor Score
In cupping, you’ll often see both descriptive notes and numeric scores:
- Notes: “Peach, black tea, floral”
- Score: 8.25 for flavor, 7.5 for acidity, etc.
Use descriptive notes in daily café use—scores are useful for quality control or sourcing decisions.
For baristas, learning to describe coffee without exaggeration builds trust. Don’t say “blueberry pie” if you barely tasted berry—aim for accuracy, not performance.
How to Build Your Palate
Cupping regularly is the best way to build sensory skills. To accelerate your growth:
- Taste side by side: Compare two coffees at a time
- Focus on one attribute: Body, acidity, or sweetness
- Use a flavor wheel: Helps you name what you taste
- Taste at different temperatures: Coffee changes as it cools
- Taste with others: Share impressions and challenge your biases
It takes time to recognize subtle notes—but the more you cup, the more your palate will evolve.
Common Cupping Flaws to Watch For
Cupping also reveals defects in coffee. Train yourself to identify:
- Quakers: Underdeveloped beans; taste papery or flat
- Fermentation: Overripe or uncontrolled processing; sour or funky
- Baked roast: Dull, dry, lacking sweetness
- Underdeveloped roast: Grainy, grassy
- Aged coffee: Woody, stale, no aroma
Recognizing these flaws improves your sourcing, service, and training conversations.
When and Why to Cup in the Café
Even if you’re not sourcing green coffee, cupping at the café helps:
- Evaluate new deliveries from your roaster
- Monitor bean aging
- Compare roast changes or experimental batches
- Train staff on sensory language
- Engage customers with public cuppings or classes
Cupping can be a team-building and educational ritual—keep it regular, respectful, and documented.
Making It a Habit
Treat cupping like bar practice or espresso dialing:
- Schedule weekly sessions
- Rotate origins and roast profiles
- Encourage honest feedback
- Log results to see improvement over time
Palate development is like muscle memory—it requires repetition.
Final Thoughts: Cupping Is Coffee Literacy
Cupping is the universal language of coffee professionals. It removes the variables of machines and milk and lets the coffee speak for itself.
As a barista, mastering cupping means:
- Sharpening your sensory skills
- Connecting more deeply to origin and roast
- Becoming a more effective communicator with customers and team members
Cup often. Taste slowly. Take notes. Over time, the coffees will teach you everything you need to know.
Artur is a coffee enthusiast and content creator passionate about barista techniques and coffee culture. With a sharp eye for detail and a love for learning, he shares practical tips, brewing guides, and gear insights to help readers elevate their coffee experience — from home brewers to aspiring professionals.