Cupping (Cata)
Sources: El Arte del Café by Sébastien Racineux & Chung-Leng Tran (Lunwerg, 2017); Coffee Sensory and Cupping Handbook by Fernández-Alduenda & Giuliano (SCA, 2021); The Coffee Roaster’s Companion by Scott Rao (2014)
Cupping (cata in Spanish) is the industry-standard method for evaluating the quality and consistency of a coffee lot. It enables producers, green buyers, and roasters to use a common protocol and compare results. It is also practised informally at home as a way to discover and compare coffees. (source: El Arte del Café)
Purpose
- Evaluate the quality and aromatic profile of a lot based on one or more samples
- Detect defects (fermentation faults, past crop characteristics, processing errors)
- Create and evaluate blends
- Basis for green coffee purchasing decisions
Equipment
| Item | Specification |
|---|---|
| Cupping bowls or glasses | 20 cl capacity |
| Cupping spoons | Round, 8–10 ml, silver (dissipates heat quickly) |
| Scale | 12g of each coffee per bowl |
| Grinder | Filter grind setting; clean between each sample |
| Kettle | 20 cl mineral water (Lanjarón or Bezoya recommended) heated to 92–95°C |
| Timer | 4-minute infusion |
| Tasting sheets | Record impressions and scores |
Protocol
1. Evaluate dry aroma
Grind the sample (filter setting) and immediately smell the volatile aromas released. Note whether pleasant, perfumed, or off. Clean the grinder with a few beans of the next sample before switching.
2. Pour and time
Pour hot water (92–95°C) over the ground coffee. Start the timer. The grounds float to the surface and form a crust.
3. Break the crust (at 4 minutes)
Break the crust with the back of the cupping spoon; stir three times. Place your nose directly over the bowl and inhale the aromas released from the crust. Skim remaining foam off the surface with the spoon.
Clean the spoon in water between bowls, especially between different coffees.
4. Taste at multiple temperatures
Using the cupping spoon, take a small amount of coffee from the bowl and aspirate it forcefully to disperse aromas across the entire palate and identify them via retronasal olfaction. Evaluate:
- Texture in the mouth: thick and creamy, or thin like tea?
- Flavour notes
- Acidity
- Aftertaste: pleasant and persistent, or does it disappear immediately?
Repeat as the coffee cools — flavour profile evolves significantly with temperature.
Evaluation Criteria (Tasting Sheet)
| Criterion | Scale | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Dry aromas | 1–5 | Herbs, cereals, husk, red fruits, tropical fruits… |
| Wet aromas | 1–5 | Same categories |
| Flavours | 1–5 | Herbs, cereals, husk, red fruits, tropical fruits… |
| Duration in mouth | 1–5 | |
| Acidity | 1–5 | |
| Body | 1–5 | |
| Level (light–heavy) | qualitative | |
| Uniformity | 1–5 | |
| Balance | 1–5 | |
| Clarity | 1–5 | |
| Smoothness | 1–5 |
The SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) uses a more detailed scoring sheet; coffees scoring 80+ qualify as specialty. See Green Coffee Trading.
The full SCA form scores twelve categories: Fragrance/Aroma, Flavor, Aftertaste, Acidity, Body, Balance, Uniformity, Clean Cup, Sweetness, Overall, Defects (taint), Defects (fault). Positive attributes are rated on a 17-point scale (6.00–10.00 in 0.25-pt increments). Uniformity, Sweetness, and Clean Cup are assessed as CATA (Check-All-That-Apply) per cup: 2 points per cup × 5 cups = 10 points maximum each. Defects are subtracted: taints −2 per cup, faults −4 per cup. (source: SCA Coffee Sensory and Cupping Handbook)
SCA Cupping Protocol — Key Parameters
| Parameter | Specification |
|---|---|
| Coffee:water ratio | 8.25g per 150mL |
| Water temperature | 90–96°C (195–205°F) |
| Steep time | 3–5 min undisturbed |
| Fragrance evaluation | Within 15 min of grinding |
| Flavor/body evaluation | ~71°C (160°F), 8–10 min post-pour |
| Sweetness/uniformity/clean cup | ~38°C (100°F), approaching room temperature |
| Stop evaluating | 21°C (70°F) |
| Specialty threshold | ≥ 80 points |
Minimum 6 cuppers for contract-level decisions (SCA research confirmed). A single cupper has ±1–2 point margin of error. (source: SCA Coffee Sensory and Cupping Handbook)
Sweetness: A Crossmodal Phenomenon
“Sweetness” in cupping does not measure dissolved sugars — no sweet compound in brewed coffee reaches taste threshold concentration. Coffee’s perceived sweetness is a crossmodal aromatic impression: sweet-smelling aromatics (vanillin, caramel, fruit esters) are perceived retronasally and trigger the sensation of sweetness. Scoring sweetness in cupping is really scoring the presence of sweet aromatic character. (source: SCA Coffee Sensory and Cupping Handbook)
This is why the SCA form scores sweetness as a CATA (present/absent per cup) rather than on an intensity scale.
Bias and Error in Cupping
Studies show ~90% correlation among all cupping attribute scores (“halo effect”) — cuppers effectively assign a global quality impression and distribute it across all attributes. Key biases:
- Expectation bias: knowing origin, variety, or roast level biases scores — use blind coding
- Social bias: a senior cupper’s opinion contaminates others — enforce silence until forms submitted
- Order/contrast effects: a defective sample makes the next sample score higher — randomize order
See Sensory Science for full discussion and mitigation practices.
The SCA Flavor Wheel
Developed jointly by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) and World Coffee Research, the flavor wheel is a visual reference for identifying and naming coffee aromas and flavours. It organises descriptors from the centre out (general → specific):
Sweet sector: caramel, honey, maple syrup, molasses, dark chocolate, vanilla, confectionery, brown sugar
Nutty sector: almond, hazelnut, peanut, walnut
Spice sector: clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, anise (soft spices) → pepper (sharp spices)
Roasted sector: cereal, malt, burnt/toasted, smoky, ash, acrid, tobacco, pipe tobacco
Fruity sector: red fruits (strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, blackberry), other fruits (apple, pear, peach, plum, cherry, coconut, pineapple, grape, mango), citrus (orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit), dried fruits (raisin, dried plum)
Floral sector: chamomile, rose, jasmine, black tea
Sour/Fermented sector: acetic acid, butyric acid, isovaleric acid, citric acid, malic acid, wine, whisky, fermented
Green/Vegetable sector: olive oil, green pea, garden herbs, grass, hay
Off-flavours: rubber, medicinal, petroleum, cardboard, paper, stale, mould/earth, animal, compost, phenolic, salty, bitter, chemical
Relevance to Kaiserblick
Cupping is the primary evaluation tool at every stage of Kaiserblick’s value chain — farm lot assessment, green coffee export quality verification, and roast profile development by Roxanne Fredericksen. The SCA score of 80+ is the threshold for the specialty segment that Kaiserblick targets.
Rao’s Cupping Protocol for Roasters
Rao’s protocol differs slightly from the SCA standard and is optimized for evaluating roast development:
- Dose: 10.0g per cup (use a 0.01g-resolution scale)
- Water: 170g at 204–205°F (96°C) — remove kettle lid and wait ~45–60 seconds after boiling
- Steep: 9 minutes before tasting begins
- Evaluation temperatures: hot (as hot as tolerable at 9 min), lukewarm, room temperature — each reveals different information
- Always blind: label cup bottoms before adding water, or have someone else arrange cups
Roast-quality signals by phase:
- Dry aroma: overroast or insufficient airflow may show as harsh smokiness; intensity indicates freshness
- Wet aroma at pour: savory or vegetal = underdevelopment; sweet, clean, fruity = good development
- Hot cup: best for evaluating acidity, brightness, sweetness, balance
- Cool cup: green coffee defects and roast artifacts (grass, cardboard, smoke) become clearest as acidity dissipates
Maximum samples per session: 5–6 (palate loses sensitivity; “taste adaptation” is a real limit). (source: The Coffee Roaster’s Companion by Scott Rao (2014))
Rao recommends cupping coffees the day after roasting to assess development, rather than waiting for the standard espresso rest period.
Interpreting Roast Artifacts vs. Bean Traits
When evaluating a roast, distinguishing bean character from roasting mistakes requires experience. General principle:
- Specific aromatic notes (raspberry, lavender, blueberry, earthy) = likely intrinsic to the bean
- Generic off-flavors (grassy, savory, flat, smoky, baked, burnt) = likely roast artifacts
See Roast Defects for a full table of cup defects → roast causes → fixes. (source: The Coffee Roaster’s Companion by Scott Rao (2014))
Cupping vs. Brewing Evaluation
Cupping is an evaluation method for comparing coffees under controlled, standardised conditions — it is not a recipe for serving coffee. It uses a steeping method (grounds immersed in water, not filtered) and evaluates the coffee at multiple temperatures as it cools.
Brewing evaluation — using the Coffee Brewing Control Chart and measuring TDS and extraction yield — is a separate, complementary tool used to assess how a specific brewer and recipe performs with a given coffee. The two methods answer different questions:
- Cupping: “How good is this coffee?”
- Brewing evaluation: “Is this coffee being brewed correctly?”
Related pages
- Roasting
- Roasting Service
- Green Coffee Trading
- Coffee Processing
- Coffee Brewing Control Chart
- Extraction
- Brewing Standards
- Sensory Science
- Sensory Testing Methods
- Sensory Attributes and Value
- Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel
- Roast Defects
- Roast Development
- El Arte del Café (Source Summary)
- SCA Coffee Sensory and Cupping Handbook
- “Scott Rao — The Coffee Roaster’s Companion (2014)”