Cupping at home

What cupping is for

Cupping is a comparison protocol, not a recipe. Every variable is held constant so that any difference you taste is the coffee’s, not the brewer’s. That is why it is done in plain bowls with no filter: a filter is one more thing that could differ between samples.

It is how roasters buy coffee, how they check a roast, and how a Q Grader assigns a score. At home, it is the fastest way to learn what your own palate does and does not notice.

What you need

• Two to four coffees to compare
• A bowl for each, all the same size, 200 to 250 ml
• A scale, a grinder, a kettle, a timer
• One deep spoon per person, and a cup of water to rinse it

The protocol

1. Weigh. 8.25 g of coffee per 150 ml of water is the standard ratio. Round it: 12 g of coffee in a 200 ml bowl is close enough and easier to hit.
2. Grind coarse, a touch coarser than for filter, and grind each sample directly into its own bowl, immediately before the water goes in.
3. Smell the dry grounds. Take your time and write something down, even a single word.
4. Pour water just off the boil, about 93 °C, filling every bowl to the same level. Start the timer.
5. Smell again at about one minute, when the crust has formed on top.
6. Break the crust at four minutes: push the crust gently away with the back of the spoon, nose over the bowl, and take in what comes up. This is the moment cupping exists for.
7. Skim the foam and floating grounds off with two spoons.
8. Taste from eight minutes, when it has cooled enough. Slurp sharply so the coffee sprays across the whole tongue, and taste each bowl in turn rather than finishing one.
9. Taste again as it cools. Coffee changes more between 60 °C and 40 °C than between any other two points, and defects show up as it drops.

What to write down

Skip the flavour wheel at first. For each bowl, note four things: how sour it is, how sweet it is, how bitter it is, and how it feels in the mouth. Then one sentence on what it reminds you of, however unpoetic.

After a dozen sessions you will find that you rank the same coffees the same way twice, which is the actual skill. Naming the blackcurrant comes later, and it matters far less than most people writing about coffee suggest.