Coffee Cupping is the practice of observing the tastes and aromas of brewed coffee. If you have always been interested in deciding what kind of type of coffee you into, coffee cupping is the best way to find out. This is a fun way of finding out at home weather you into light roast or medium or dark roast, or a Columbian bean or Ethiopian bean or a blend of both J, or 100% Arabica.
This is a fun way of exercising your palate and learning about coffee flavors and aroma in the comfort of your home and will enrich your coffee experience.
At Hausbrandt, we cup each batch of coffee with samples to make sure we meet our quality of excellent standards. Plus, it’s also an excuse to talk about coffee flavors.
Below are a few guidelines on how to do coffee cupping at home.
What you need:
Of course, the coffee is you have must first and for most. We recommend to do the tasting with 20 grams of coffee of 3 different blends but it is not a rule, you can do coffee cupping with as many blends as you desire, an idea of blends to use would be the Hausbrandt Gourmet Columbus, Herman Hausbrandt Blend and Qualita Rossa.
A Kettle for boiling water
Scale for weighing the coffee
Water (preferably use filtered water)
Ceramic cups or bowls with even volume (preferably 160ml-200ml)
A timer for timing the brewing times of the coffee as brewing time is very important when it comes to making a perfect cup of coffee
Cupping spoons, you can use also soup spoons for the tasting. Make sure each person has two spoons if you more than one person. The two spoons come in handy when it comes to clearing the crust
Bowls or small plate to collect the used coffee grounds
Grinder for grinding the coffee if you didn’t purchase ready grounded coffee.
Photo by René Porter on Unsplash
Steps:
1. Open Mind
When doing coffee cupping, we need to look all preconceptions behind of the type of coffee you used to or you prefer. As a coffee lover, judge every cup you taste with an open mind and experience the flavors and aroma
2. Setup your cupping station
Put your three cups/bowls next to each other together with the bowls for the used grounds. It is also very helpful to label them in case you forget which is which.
3. Grinding
Grind out 2g of coffee to prime the grinder. Then grind out 18g of each of the three blends in the separate cups/bowls. Always prime the grinder at every blend to make sure the beans don’t mix. Grinder should be a medium grind (similar to sand). This is of course if you didn’t purchase ready grounded coffee.
4. Smell the coffee
Take a moment to smell the coffee grounds and experience their aromas and texture
5. Add boiling water
Boil water up to 92 -94 degrees Celsius, and pour 150 ml in each of the three cups and start the timer
6. Observations
Observe the wet aromas of the coffee. You will notice after a minute or so, coffee granules start to accumulate on top of the cup and create a layer, this is called a ‘Crust’.
7. Breaking the Crust
After 4 mins, break the crust. This is a great opportunity to analyze the aroma. To do this, use the spoon to push the coffee grounds towards the edge of the cup. Draw close to the cup and smell the coffee while breaking the crust at the same time. The coffee releases very nice aromas during this time. Be sure to rinse your spoon after every cup.
8. Remove the crust.
After breaking the crust remove the crust using the two spoons putting it in a separate small bowl or small saucer
9. Cooling
Allow the cups to cool for 13-15 minutes. By this time, you will be able to taste all the flavors of the coffees.
10. To cup, take a small volume of coffee and slurp it off your spoon, like you would a hot soup. This’ll vaporise the liquid, making it easier to detect flavour.
11. Repeat this for each of the coffees, using the side by side comparison of the different blends to help detect differences in aromas, flavour, acidity, body and aftertaste.
Discuss
In the event you are more than two people. It’s best not to talk about what you taste until everyone’s tasted all the cups: you’re very open to discussion your experiences around the different coffees. Below Is a couple of links to assist you on how assess coffee flavour using our coffee flavours wheel. Happy Cupping !!!
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