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Cupping is how we standardise the tasting of coffee. We all taste, but we don’t have the vocabulary to precisely describe our perceptions. Moreover, each person has a different ability to taste and different preferences.
Coffee is very complex and has around 850 volatile and 700 soluble chemical compounds - ten times more than wine [citation required]. We can’t perceive all of these substances – caffeine for example is tasteless [citation]. But the combination of many of these compounds give us the rich taste that we know as coffee. In order to be able to describe tastes we have to define categories. They are arbitrary and often overlap especially with a taste as complex as coffee. We generally break taste down into five areas: sweet, bitter, sour, salty and umami. Many people mix up categories even at this basic level. This is partly because we all perceive taste differently and because we all have different preferences. The important thing to remember is that there is no right with taste, only individual preference. Taste is very closely partnered with smell and the majority of our perception of taste is smell. Around 25 of the volatile compounds give us the aroma of coffee. "As much as 80% of what we call "taste" actually is aroma" (Dr Susan Schiffman quoted in Chicago Tribune, 3 May 1990) "Ninety percent of what is perceived as taste is actually smell" (Dr Alan Hirsch of the Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, quoted in MX, Melbourne, Australia, 28 Jan 2003). Smell is more sensitive than taste: threshold for sucrose (taste) is between 12 and 30mM (millimolar) depending upon test used. Strychnine is a very powerful taste (apparently), and can be tasted at 10-6M (one micromolar). As for smell, mercaptan can be detected at 7x10-13M. Taking into account the relative volumes needed for taste and smell (you sniff a greater volume of air than you taste a liquid), smell is 10,000 times more sensitive than taste (Moncrieff, R.W. "The Chemical Senses", 3rd ed., Leonard Hill, London, 1967). Cupping is as important as roasting as most of our customers tend to drink their coffees. For the first four years a roasting apprentice should be cupping every day. This is how the apprentice learns to avoid creating defects in the coffee. Cupping isn’t the domain of coffee snobs like us. It’s easy to do, good fun and very stimulating. How to cup at home You'll need: one glass per coffee being tried, plus one for drinking water, one for cleaning your spoons, one as a spitoon cupping form and pen (here's a simple version of our cupping form) MP3 of 'one more cup of coffee' by Bob Dylan just 'off the boil' water (we use 120mL to 14g of coffee per cup) a grinder set to fine (we set it a little finer than filter, which is halfway between espresso and cafetiere a nose 2 x soup spoons Grind all your coffees and put equal measures (we use 14g or two level teaspoons) into your cups. 'Nose' the grinds by putting your nose right in there and slowly, deeply inhaling. It helps to put your thumbs over the top of the cups, alongside your nose to channel the fragrance into your nostrils. We're looking for any associations that the fragrance reminds you of, be it dry items in the kitchen cupboard or environmental smells like woodland or desert air. When I'm feeling particularly imaginative, I have gotten savannah grassland from Ethiopian Sidamo coffees and malt and silverbirch bark from Sumatran Mandhelings. Note down your associations. Add water to no more than 3cm from the top of the cup. Fresh-roasted coffee will froth or bloom up as the CO2 escapes the grinds. Leave the grinds to percolate for three minutes. Have another sniff and think again about the smells you associate with the coffee. You may find that wet ingredients in the kitchen cupboard or even the garage are now closer to the mark: treacle, oil, damp soil, wet pussy cat. Break the crust of the coffee using the back of your soup spoon while following close behind the spoon with your nose. Do this three times swiftly and each time think again about what you are smelling. Now note down any associations you came up with. They should be similar to the previous, but more intense. Now grab your spoons and cross them over and in one deft scoop, remove the remaining bloom from the top of the cup: 
Time forget all etiquette and to slurp the coffee. We want to suck air over the top of the liquid and get it to mix and spray the whole of our palates with coffee. The volatile aromatic compounds should swirl up the back of our nostrils. What we're trying to create is a party in our mouth that all our taste-buds are invited to. Follow the rest of the headings on the sheet and make as many notes as you can and enjoy it. It should be a lot of fun discovering senses that you haven't before exercised in such depth. |
