COFFEE CUPPING - Increasing Your Coffee Tasting Skill

[Applause] [Music] what's up everyone it's prometheus and today we are talking about cupping and about how it can help you learn and expand your copy tasting abilities for quite a while cupping was reserved basically for more of the behind the scenes work like sourcing roasting and quality assurance but over the past few years public cuppings and tastings have gained some mainstream popularity from local cafes hosting them on a weekly basis at least pre-covid to large-scale virtual cuppings hosted here on youtube they've seemed to really hit their stride as much as i enjoy cupping in its most basic form it still feels more or less like a utility to me more often than not at the cupping table i'm usually dialing in roast profiles doing quality assurance or picking out new coffees for little giant so it's more of a serious business undertaking than it once was but when i want to have a little fun add a little challenge or add some healthy competition to the cupping table i like to break out triangulation exercises if you're like me you likely have more than one coffee on hand at minimum for this you'll need two coffees but three or four would be a bit better and add a little more challenge to the mix but today for the sake of simplicity and to not use more coffee than absolutely necessary i'm going to use two different coffees a single origin guatemala and a single origin costa rican both are wash process and have a similar roast level and the same roast date flavor-wise these coffees are pretty different and it shouldn't be very hard to distinguish between one and the other but at home or wherever you're doing this exercise try using coffees that are relatively similar in flavor to make it a little bit harder for yourself to pick out but in this case i'm just trying to show you an example using what i have on hand by setting it up and i'm not really trying to flex on you with my tasting prowess but i digress let's get this table prepped up to keep things simple i like to set up my triangulations and my standard cuppings using the sca or specialty coffee association cupping protocols first up grab a few bowls or glasses and also make sure you're grabbing them in sets of three before you start prepping any coffee you'll also want to attach a sticker or a marking to the bottom of the cupping bowls you're going to set aside to contain the odd coffee out so it can be accurately identified after you cupped it the sca calls for 8.25 grams of coffee per cup and ground slightly coarser than your typical paper filter brew but remember they're talking about coffee brewer and not pour over filter so for me on the niche zero i adjust all the way past the numbers and align with the center screw by the lid once ground your copy should look more or less like this as i set up this exercise i'm going to fill two bowls of each set with guatemalan and then one of each group with 4 grams of guatemala and 4.25 grams of costa rican any cup containing the outlier coffee will be marked with an orange sticker on the underside so it can be identified after tasting an evaluation it may be a little bit more difficult to go about the triangulation solo thanks covid but it takes a little time to prep up so if you just prep all your bowls and then mix them around and go do other things like boiling your water and getting other things ready hopefully you maybe forget and kind of keep a little bit of mystery alive in the process once all of your samples are ground each cup will receive 150 milliliters or grams of approximately 200 degrees fahrenheit or 93 degrees celsius water as you fill the cups begin a timer i usually measure the first cup in terms of weight and then do the best to align all the cups to that same level finally once your timer hits four minutes you're ready to begin your tasting and evaluation process just like a standard cupping your evaluation process should begin by breaking the crust and smelling the aroma that each bowl presents taking note of which cups may already be the outlier from there you'll need to scrape off and remove the crust or any grounds that remain on the surface of the bowl paying close attention to rinsing your spoons between each sample to ensure no cross-contamination occurs once your timer reaches 10 minutes and the cups have sufficiently cooled you can begin tasting in this process you'll want to aerate each slurp of coffee off your spoon to allow the coffee to cover as much surface area on your pallet as possible getting that proper slurp off your spoon is definitely a skill and we all feel awkward doing it in the beginning but trust me it gets easier with time after you've tasted each cup in a set and you feel as though you've found the odd bowl pull it aside and move on to the next set of coffees this process should be repeated until you've completed all the triangulation sets on the table and last but not least you can check underneath each of your guesses to see if you made the right choice also you may want to invest in a decent sized strainer for your sink because those coffee grounds have to go somewhere as you discard the samples trust me your plumbing will thank you triangulations and cupping in general are great ways for you to train your palate into picking up differences both big and small you can always increase or decrease the difficulty as well which is a great way to grow as a coffee lover or a professional smelling and tasting more and more copies will give you a broader understanding of not only the flavors that can be found in coffee but also gaining insight into some of the more subtle and complex factors like origin varietal and processing just to name a few but if you're just starting out it may be more helpful to focus on broader descriptors like sweetness acidity body and aftertaste before trying to hone in on those more subtle flavors in the grand scheme cupping is just one of the many puzzle pieces that help us gain a better understanding of this very complex beverage we know as coffee as unusual complicated and at some points awkward as it may seem the first few times you do it like anything else it gets easier and becomes more like second nature doing triangulations or at the very least cupping coffees on a regular basis is a great way to build up and maintain your tasting skills plus it's a useful way to use some of that extra coffee you've got lying around so it's a win-win of course learning how to cup and taste coffees like a professional isn't a prerequisite to enjoying it drink coffee however you'd like whether it's a calming morning ritual of brewing up a pour over or the challenge of dialing in a delicious shot of espresso just enjoy it but with all that said i think it's time to wrap this one up drop any thoughts comments or questions about cuppings triangulations or anything coffee related down below in the comments and as always i'll see you all next week and of course a big thank you to my december patreons ads james b jacob p david w christopher john k squeegee row brian lisa oboe andre rick racer sean noel spookus bound coffee mika samantha claire steven james k josh andrew horison corey c curry jeff roth joey n thomas b ninja warrior coffee testing123 jason c jerry rd tim matt tony zach rivey tyler f uk espresso robert underdunk jeffrey r bjk cafe chris m daniel p mike b james s brian m brandon b tyler m and sebastian and of course a big thank you to the barista and bar back tears if you want information on my patreon there's a link in the description and in the upper right hand corner right now and of course a big thank you to you for watching don't forget to like share and subscribe hit that little bell button for notifications of new videos posted every friday follow my instagram that's prometheus for content throughout the week my blog it's prometheus.com mycoffee littlegiant.coffee and as always stay caffeinated ponyboy

Channel: The Real Sprometheus

Views: 29,373

Keywords: Coffee Cupping, Coffee Cupping Slurp, Coffee Cupping Tutorial, Coffee Cupping Procedure, Coffee Cupping Session, Coffee Cupping Technique, Coffee, Coffee Roaster, Cupping Coffee, Sprometheus, Specialty Coffee, Third Wave Coffee, Barista Training, Roaster Training, James Hoffmann, Chris Baca, Coffee Tasting, Coffee Tasting Expert, How to Taste Coffee, Coffee Tasting Slurp, Barista Vlog, Tasting Coffee, Tasting Coffee Guide, Coffee Tasting Notes, Coffee Flavor Notes, Barista

Id: 76SL2FXGmbo

Length: 8min 1sec (481 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 04 2020