How To Ensure Consistency In Coffee Cupping?

No matter what career you are engaged in, accurate and consistent information when making decisions will be the key to assisting you in making decisions.

The mineral composition and temperature of the water, the amount of fine powder and large particles produced during coffee grinding, the change of roasting method, and even the local temperature may affect the accuracy of cup measurement, which will make you face unreliable data.

Therefore, we must first standardize all 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 coffee bean itself.

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The mineral composition of water and the softness and hardness of water affects not only the taste of water but also the extraction rate of coffee. Therefore, unless the water quality is controlled, the results of the cupping of coffee in different regions will have different scores and flavor profiles.

Standardization of water quality is obviously an important variable because water accounts for a large proportion of the coffee you want to taste.

According to the cupping guide of the fine coffee association SCA, the cupping water must be clean and tasteless, not distilled water or soft water. The optimal water quality for the cupping should be between TDS 125-175ppm.

To ensure that the water quality used in the cupping is the same, you must use water quality test accessories and test the water from the same water source. If the test meets the standard, it should be continuously applied in the whole cupping process.

Sometimes bean roasters carry their own cup measuring kit, including refraction instruments and TDS measuring machines.

But don't forget that even the water from the same water source will change its quality. It is usually recommended to test your water at least once a week if you want to use it for a cupping.

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According to SCA, the temperature of coffee powder in contact with water during cup measurement should be 93 º C, but controlling this temperature is a tricky thing.

Matthew said that they use Marco pb10 boiler, which is designed to stabilize the water temperature.

Another factor affecting the water temperature is that the hot water temperature will be lost due to exposure to air. The action of injecting hot water into the cup should be as fast as possible to reduce the time difference between each cup.

Danny said that when he was evaluating the excellence cup, the way to overcome the temperature loss was to use a large kettle. The boiling hot water was poured out of the kettle containing four liters of water. From one end of the table to the other end, 20-22 cups of coffee were injected, and each cup was injected to the edge of the cup, which took about a minute and a half.

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The shape of the kettle is also very important. Do not use a fine mouth kettle to fill water. In this way, the brewing between each cup of coffee is bound to be different. For example, the first cup of coffee will be exposed to the hottest hot water. In contrast, the last cup of coffee is the lowest temperature of hot water because the fine mouth kettle will expose the hot water to more cooling substances during water filling, resulting in the loss of hot heat water.

Suppose the purpose of your cupping is to find out the flavor potential of raw coffee beans, not the potential flavor characteristics brought by roasting. In that case, it is very important to minimize the difference caused by coffee roasting or exhaust. The bean roaster should understand that SCA formulates the agreement for sample roasting, including roasting degree, standing time, sample storage conditions, etc.

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Although the machine can heat hot water to a precise temperature, and you can measure the roasting degree on various instruments, the measurement of grinding size is more difficult. The most important thing is to obtain the correct grinding size and limit the generation of fine powder and large particles as much as possible. Pay attention to the grinding quality of the grinder and use tools such as a screen to ensure consistency.

The agreement of the fine coffee association SCA points out that the coffee samples should be weighed in the way of raw beans and soaked with water within 15 minutes after grinding into powder. The grinding size should be slightly thicker than that used for hand brewing coffee, and 70-75% of the particles can be screened with the American Standard size 20 screen. SCA recommends that at least five cups of samples be prepared for each coffee to ensure consistency between samples.

If there is residue in the grinder, it may be left in the grinder before grinding. SCA recommends that a small amount of sample beans be ground and discarded before grinding the sample, which means that even the residual powder will be the same coffee.

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The replicability of the cupping is as important as consistency. A rigorous cupping process helps to improve the replicability of each cupping. If you fill half of the water during the cupping, the phone rings, then let the water and coffee cool for three minutes, and then come back to fill the water after talking about the phone, many cups of coffee have already begun to extract, so there will be some samples with over-extraction or insufficient extraction during the cupping.

Even a small variation will affect the reproducibility of the cupping. The following key points must be followed during the cupping:

During slag breaking, do not be too violent so that stirring may affect the extraction.

When fishing for slag, try not to stir the coffee with a spoon so that the turbulence will affect the coffee.

When sipping each cup of coffee, wash the spoon with clean water to reduce the influence of different coffee samples on each other's flavor.

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Try not to talk during cuppings not to affect the flavor of others and distract attention. Grinding size may be the most challenging part when complying with international cupping standards because it is more challenging to achieve standardization.

Experienced cuppingers can accept taste correction with the team to make the communication during cuppings and the consistency of scores more efficient.

However, the cuppinger is also the most difficult variable to control. Differences in cultural backgrounds may lead to differences in the perception of food and flavor of the cuppinger team.

In order to solve this problem, some competitions, such as the cupping of the excellence cup, must meet certain requirements. Cupping testers must not only have many years of experience in cuppinging but also need to carry out cuppinging regularly. In addition, several rounds of taste correction should be carried out for each cuppinging activity.

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For producers and bean roasters, it is worth training the team together, such as tasting fruits, spices, and other foods commonly used as reference. If you have teams in different countries or regions, this action is very important. If you use fruits such as pitaya and grapefruit to describe the flavor during the Asian cupping, being familiar with the taste of these fruits together may improve the cognition of European team members. You can also refer to the situation at the time of correction, such as how cuppingers describe the flavor of the same coffee sample.

When cuppinging forms the basis of important business decisions, it is important to correctly implement the details of cuppinging, from the purchase of coffee to the configuration of bean roasting techniques and when processing micro-batches for experiments. You need reliable cupping results.

Therefore, quantify each link as much as possible, train the team, and pay attention to the various factors such as roasting degree, grinding size, water quality, and water temperature.

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