How To Ensure Consistency In Coffee Cupping

No matter what business you are in, accurate and consistent information when making decisions is key to assisting you in your decision making.

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The mineral content of the water and its temperature, the amount of fines and large particles produced during coffee grinding, variations in roasting practices, and even the local temperature can all affect the accuracy of the cupping, which can leave you with unreliable data.

What we want to do is to be able to analyze or evaluate the coffee itself, and to do so, we must first standardize all the variables in the brewing process to ensure that when we brew, taste, or compare coffee samples, the only difference between them is the difference in the beans themselves.

The mineral composition of the water and the softness of the water affects not only how the water tastes, but also the extraction rate of the coffee, so unless water quality is controlled, cupping coffee in different regions will result in different scores and flavor profiles.

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Standardization of water quality is obviously a very important variable, as water makes up a large percentage of the coffee you are tasting.

The fine coffee association sca's cupping guidelines state that the water used for cupping must be clean and odorless, not distilled or soft water. The ideal water quality for cupping should be between 125-175 ppm tds.

To ensure that the water quality used for cupping is the same, you must use water testing accessories and test the water from the same source.

Sometimes bean roasters bring their own cupping kits, which include refractometers and tds measurement machines.

But don't forget that even the water quality of the same source can change, and it is usually recommended that if you are going to use it for cupping, you should test your water at least weekly.

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According to the sca, the temperature of the coffee powder in contact with the water during cupping should be 93ºc, but controlling this temperature can be a tricky task.

Matthew said they use a marco pb10 boiler, which is designed to keep the water temperature stable.

Another factor that affects the temperature of the water is that it loses temperature when it comes into contact with air, and filling the cups with hot water should be as quick as possible to minimize the time lag between cups.

Danny says that when he was judging the cups of excellence, the way to overcome the temperature loss was to use a very large kettle, with boiling hot water poured from a four-liter kettle, and to fill 20 to 22 cups of coffee from one end of the table to the other, each to the rim of the cup.

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The shape of the kettle is also important. Do not use a small spout to fill the kettle, as this will inevitably result in a difference in the brew between each cup of coffee, such as the first cup of coffee being exposed to the hottest hot water and the last cup of coffee being the coldest hot water, as the small spout will expose the hot water to more cooling substances during filling, resulting in a loss of heat from the hot water.

Accuracy is also important, and although the difference here is only a few seconds or half a degree, it may not sound like much, but it can affect the extraction of the coffee. It is important to make sure that the samples on the table are consistent and that the analysis of each sample focuses only on the coffee itself, not on the difference in brewing water temperature.

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If the purpose of your cupping is to identify the flavor potential of the raw coffee beans, not the potential flavor characteristics of the roast, then it is important to minimize the variation caused by roasting or venting the coffee. Roasters should be aware of the protocols established by the sca for sample roasting, including roast level, resting time, sample storage conditions, etc.

Although machines can heat hot water to exact temperatures and you can measure roast levels on various instruments, it is more difficult to measure grind coarseness, and it is most important to get the correct grind coarseness and limit the production of fine powder and large particles as much as possible. Pay attention to the grind quality of the grinder and use tools such as sieves to ensure consistency.

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The fine coffee association's sca protocol states that coffee samples should be weighed as is and soaked in water within 15 minutes of being ground into powder, with a grind that is slightly coarser than that used for hand brewed coffee, and a coarseness that allows 70-75% of the particles to be sifted through a standard u.s. Size 20 sieve. To ensure consistency between samples.

The sca recommends that a small amount of sample beans be ground and discarded prior to grinding the sample, which means that even if there is residual powder, it will still be the same coffee.

Reproducibility during cupping is as important as consistency, and a rigorous cupping process can help improve the reproducibility of each cupping session. If you are halfway through a cupping session and the phone rings, then you let the water and coffee cool for three minutes and then come back after the phone call to continue filling, many cups of coffee will already be extracted, so there will be some over-extracted or under-extracted samples in the cupping session.

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Even small variables can affect the reproducibility of cupping, so the following points must be followed when cupping

• When breaking the slag, do not stir so vigorously that the extraction may be affected
• When capturing the grounds, try not to stir the coffee with a spoon, which could disturb the flow of coffee
• Wash the spoon with clean water as you sip each cup of coffee to minimize the interplay of flavors between different coffee samples
• Try not to talk during cupping to avoid affecting the flavor of others and distracting from the coarseness of the grind, which can be one of the trickiest parts of complying with international cupping standards, as it is more difficult to standardize.

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A well-trained team is also one of the keys to standardizing the cupping process. Experienced cuppers can work with the team to receive taste corrections, allowing for more efficient communication during cupping and consistency in scoring.

However, the tester is also the most difficult variable to control. Cultural differences can lead to discrepancies in the perception of food and flavors by the tasters.

To solve this problem, some competitions, such as the cup of excellence, have to meet certain requirements. Not only must the cuers have years of cupping experience, but they also need to cupping regularly, in addition to performing several rounds of taste corrections for each cupping event.

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For producers and bakers, it is worthwhile to train the team together, such as tasting fruits, spices, and other foods that are commonly used as references. This is important if you have teams in different countries or regions. If you use fruits such as dragon fruit and grapefruit to describe flavors during the asian cup test, familiarizing yourself with the flavors of these fruits together may enhance the awareness of your european team members. You can also refer to calibration situations, such as comparing how the cuers described the flavor of the same coffee sample.

When cupping forms the basis of important business decisions, from the purchase of coffee to the configuration of roasting methods and the handling of microbatches for experiments, it is important to get the details of cupping right. You need cupping results that you can trust.

So quantify every aspect as much as possible, train your team, and pay attention to variables such as roast level, grind coarseness, water quality, water temperature, etc.

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