What Is Cupping (and Why Do We Still Do It?)

Cupping is how coffee professionals taste coffee. Not like drip coffee or a carefully crafted pour over at home. It’s a standardized method we use to evaluate coffees side by side, removing variables like filters, agitation, or brew style so that what you taste is just the coffee. It helps us decide what to buy, how to roast it, and whether a coffee holds up over time.

At Kinship, we use cupping to:

• Select lots during souring/green coffee buying

• Dial in roast profiles

• Train our palates

• And often reconnect with why we love coffee in the first place

Cupping isn’t a flashy ritual. It’s quiet, focused, and sensory. It is simple and straightforward. And that’s the whole point.

What You’ll Need

Here’s a basic setup for a solid, professional-style cupping. Most of this can be scaled up or down.

Core Equipment:

• Burr grinder

• Digital scale (recommend one accurate to 0.1g)

• Timer (phone works)

• Kettle (200°-205°F water)

• Cupping bowls (7-9 oz / 207–266 mL)

• Cupping spoons (one that is deep and wide)

• Rinse cups + hot water for spoons

• Spittoon/Spit Mug (if you want to avoid over-caffeination)

Coffee:

• Roast date: Fresh but not too fresh. 1-4 days of rest is best for cupping light roasts. For roasters QC cupping 8-24 hours of rest is best.

• Dose: 8.25g per 150 mL of water is the SCA standard (~1:18), but we often cup at 1:16 or 1:17 for brighter profiles

• Grind: Coarse—similar to French press, with ~70% passing through a #20 mesh screen

Step-by-Step Cupping Process

1. Setup and Dry Fragrance
Grind each coffee into its own bowl and smell the grounds. Don’t rush. Note anything that stands out—floral? chocolatey? sweet or sharp? This is called the dry fragrance.

2. Pour
Start your timer and pour 200°F water (just off boil) into each bowl, saturating all grounds evenly and filling to the rim. Let steep for 4 minutes. A crust will form on the surface.

3. Break the Crust
At 4:00, use a spoon to gently break the crust—stir three times, pushing the grounds back. As you do this, lean in and smell the coffee: this is the wet aroma.

4. Skim
After breaking, skim off floating grounds with two spoons. Clean bowls make for better tasting and more consistent cooling.

5. Wait
Don't taste straight away.

James Hoffmann, Barista Hustle, and most seasoned cuppers agree: hot coffee can hide clarity and amplify acidity. We recommend tasting around 12–13 minutes after pouring, when the coffee has cooled to 130°F (54–56°C). This is where balance, sweetness, and body become clearer.

6. Taste
Use a spoon to slurp the coffee across your whole palate. Yes, slurp. Loudly. It aerates the coffee and spreads it across your tongue and into your nose—crucial for tasting.

7. Take Notes
Evaluate each coffee for:

• Flavor

• Acidity

• Body

• Sweetness

• Aftertaste

• Balance

Don’t overthink. Just jot down what stands out. You can use score sheets, or just descriptors. For public events, we prefer simple: "punchy," "tea-like," "creamy," "berry-forward," etc.

Tips from the Industry

• Always wait to score until the bowl cools. Many pros revisit cups at 12, 14, 16, all the way up to 30 minutes.

• Use the same water you brew with. If you use filtered water for brewing coffee or espresso, use that for cupping too.

• Don’t over-interpret your first impression. Flavors shift dramatically as the cup cools. Early tastings are like a preview of what's to come.

• Clean your spoons constantly. Keep a rinse cup with hot water nearby.

Kinship Recommendations

• Start with 3–4 coffees per session, it's easy to get overwhelmed with a dozen or more cupping bowls. Palate fatigue is a real thing, after dozens of cupping bowls and sessions in one day, everything tastes the same.

• Cup with your team or friends to build shared vocabulary and gain from individual olfactory memory and experiences. 

• Make it communal, not competitive. It is not about who can slurp the loudest or who can wax poetic with tasting notes.

• Trust your senses more than the score sheet. If you think the coffee is "pretty good" that's normal. It's part of the learning curve. The more you cup with others, especially those who taste regularly, the more calibrated your palate becomes.
  You don't need formal training to get there. You can absolutely learn to score within half a point of a Q-Grader across a dozen coffee just by cupping often, asking questions, and paying attention. That's not theory, it's real (personal) experience. 
  

Final Word

At Kinship, cupping isn’t just about quality control. It’s about honoring the work behind each coffee. From farm to roastery to cup, cupping reminds us that flavor is a fingerprint—a glimpse into where a coffee came from and what makes it matter.

So slurp loud. Ask questions. Compare notes. And let the coffee speak for itself.

Want to join a session? We host free public cuppings at the shop on a regular basis. Keep an eye on our Instagram for upcoming dates.