What's in a cup of coffee? For professional tasters, quite a lot. In fact, one aficionado has actually insured his taste buds for over $16 million USD. While not everyone can do cupping for a living, you can still do your own taste testing at home. Here are some helpful tips for making your coffee cupping as effective as possible:
1. Use the same roasts
Light roasts tend to be the best ones, since the flavour of the beans will more likely be intact. Regardless of which type of roast you choose, choose the same one for all of the coffees. This will help to make the tasting as uniform as possible. You should also include raw and roasted versions of each bean type.
2. Maximize your sense of smell
While your sense of taste will take centre stage during tasting, your sense of smell is also crucial. Make sure to smell the un-roasted and roasted versions of the coffee beans before you steep them. You should also smell it immediately after making it, before you stir it. This is when the strongest aromas are released.
3. Use multiple criteria when coffee cupping
Ultimately, you'll be determining the overall quality of a cup of coffee. But you should consider several characteristics of it, in order to make that determination. How's the "body" of the coffee? What's the acidity level? What's the aftertaste? It's important to note that while cupping is somewhat of a science; it's more of an art. Otherwise, the demand for professionals wouldn't be as high as it is.
4. Use an extremely controlled environment
This is a crucial step when doing at-home coffee cupping. The temperature range of the room should be 20 to 25 degrees Celsius, and the humidity should be 15%-20%. Keeping your environment within this range will help to optimize your senses of smell and taste. When is the best time of day to do this exercise? Between meals is the best time, so your palate will (literally) have a clean slate. Late mornings and late afternoons tend to be ideal times for coffee cupping.
5. Keep the samples small
Ideally, each sample should be approximately two tablespoons. Regarding the coffee's texture, it should be somewhere between drip-brew and French press. It's crucial to get the sample size and texture right, to optimize the effectiveness of your efforts.
6. Don't forget to enjoy the experience
While this is a serious business in the coffee industry, you can certainly have fun when you do non-professional coffee cupping from your home. You should still take the right steps to ensure that the environment is right, the coffee types are prepared uniformly, and you're able to make the most objective assessments possible. But most of us likely won't need to insure our taste buds for millions of dollars. So have some fun while doing your coffee cupping. It can certainly help to boost your appreciation for the different types and grades of coffee beans on the market.
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