WTF is cupping coffee?

Henning cupping coffee

We coffee folks are weird. We can’t even say that we are trying our coffees or tasting them … no we cup them. 

Also - when we do this - we do not even just make a coffee and drink it. Nonono - we chuck ground coffee in a cup - fill it up with hot water. At least we skimm off the floaters on top before we use a spoon to slurp them. OMG. 

Cupping coffee is my favourite step in the whole coffee production. We cup, when we receive new samples of exciting beans - we cup coffee when we quality control our roasts - we cup coffee  when we experiment with new blends and so much more. It always involves cupping coffee and that’s what I love. 

Every brewing method puts a bit of a spin on the coffee flavours and on top we might not have the optimal recipe to brew this specific coffee on this specific method. And we probably do not have enough roasted beans to find it. So how are we supposed to make decisions?

When I receive a coffee sample, I get around 100gr green beans. And this will end up as around 80 gr roasted samples. That’s all I have to judge the coffee. Does it fit into our selection? Will it fit into our blend? Is it what our customers ask for? All of these questions and more need to be answered based on a few grams of coffee. 

Cupping coffee provides the perfect method to standardize my flavours and I will be able to judge the coffee for what it is - not the brewing method. 

I grind every sample the same way - use water at the same temperature and let it steep equally long. 

And then we slurp and look very distinguished and we let the coffee flavours tell us which coffee to buy. 

Ok - here is the actual breakdown.

We use 10 gr of coffee (coarsley ground) with 180 gr. of Water at 95°C

We leave it to steep for 4 min and then stir and clean up the surface. 

And then we taste 

• while it is still hot (after about 10 minutes, not to burn our tongues) - 

• when it cooled down a little. 

• And I still want to know what it tastes like when the coffee has cooled to room temperature. 

We run regular cuppings in our Albufeira location - check our schedule and sign up. 

I love to include our Barista team in the process as well. They can help me find the right coffee - way better than leaving it just to me.