Coffee cupping, or the beloved ritual of brewing and tasting coffee to assess aroma and flavor, is an excellent way to discover your next favorite coffee, especially if you’re new to making the beverage.
Its name is exactly as it implies — cups containing the fresh grounds of multiple coffees are slurped (yes, slurped) and sampled to discern unique tasting notes.
This sensory-engaging activity is easy to conduct at home either alone or with a friend. At PRESS Coffee, we host our own take on coffee cupping through our Coffee 101 course, which also includes the history of coffee and why coffees taste different from one another. It allows participants to taste every square inch of coffee quickly across different brewing methods if desired, as different methods bring out various flavors in a single type of coffee.
Begin by grinding the coffees you’d like to sample, be it a single origin or several to compare against each other. For grind size, start with a medium-coarse size that is slightly larger than what one would prepare for drip coffee, with grains about the size of sea salt.
Add about 1.5 to 2 tablespoons of ground coffee into its own 8-ounce bowl or cup. From there, heat water to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Water quality is a brewing factor to pay attention to — while not a requirement for coffee cupping, I recommend using water that has a total dissolved solids of 115 to 125 PPM (a unit of measurement assessing water’s mineral levels.) Phoenix’s tap water is about 500 PPM, and bottled water is usually between 60 to 80 PPM.
Once the water is heated, pour a cup over the grounds and let it sit for three minutes. When a thin crust forms over the top, use a spoon to push into the crust to disturb its surface. Watch as lipid foam rises to the surface through the broken crust. Scoop or skim the foam off the top using your spoon.
Finally, gather half a spoon full of coffee and slurp to take in as much oxygen as possible, recreating a spray-bottle effect over the tongue. When evaluating a coffee’s flavor notes, I strongly recommend utilizing a flavor wheel, which can be purchased online, to look at while you slurp.
For example, when slurping an Ethiopian coffee, you might notice its fruitiness and be able to identify individual flavors such as strawberry or raspberry if looking at a resource to help with word recall.
After the first slurp of coffee, allow it to cool for four more minutes before enjoying a second spoonful. This second slurp can give you a better idea of the drink’s flavor nuances and is usually everyone’s favorite sampling during Coffee 101 classes.
The more you coffee cup, the quicker and easier it becomes to accurately identify tasting notes. During a product development tasting session for potential new coffees, an employee who engages in regular coffee cuppings was able to slurp a coffee and identify that it was akin to a “grape popsicle stick,” accurately calling out its woody and fruity flavor notes.
While coffee cupping is a great solo activity, it’s also fun to compare flavor notes with a friend or a group to see how your experience with a drink differs.
Editor’s note: Andrew Robertson is director of retail at PRESS Coffee, which has 19 locations around the Valley including Chandler, Gilbert, Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe. Please send your comments to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.
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