SCAA

Specialty Coffee and Cupping

Specialty coffee is evaluated through both its physical condition, including grading and classification, and its sensory condition, assessed through cupping. Specialty-grade beans should have no primary defects, only a limited number of full defects, consistent screen sizing, and at least one distinctive quality in taste, acidity, body, or aroma.

Cupping provides a standardized way to describe a coffee batch so producers, buyers, sellers, and consumers can compare its quality. A score of 85, for example, indicates a coffee with notably strong characteristics under the scoring system described by the source.

Controlled Cupping Conditions

Reliable cupping depends on repeatable conditions. The testing environment should maintain consistent lighting, water, roast level, cups, spoons, preparation methods, and evaluation procedures. Recording these conditions makes later assessments more comparable.

The process is intended to follow a structured sensory and statistical model. Standards associated with the Specialty Coffee Association provide guidance for preparing samples and conducting evaluations.

Principal Evaluation Categories

Overall

The overall score expresses the cupper’s integrated judgment of the coffee. Personal preferences may influence this assessment even when individual attributes score highly.

Uniformity and Clean Cup

Uniformity considers whether the cups sampled from one batch display the same sensory characteristics. Clean cup considers whether undesirable flavors or inconsistencies appear across those samples. Together, these categories help identify irregular results, preparation problems, or defects within a batch.

Sweetness

Sweetness contributes to a pleasant cup and can soften the perception of acidity. Its relationship with acidity, flavor, and mouthfeel influences the coffee’s balance.

Balance

Balance describes how well aroma, flavor, acidity, sweetness, and body work together. A balanced coffee has no attribute that disrupts the overall sensory experience.

Aroma

Aroma may be evaluated at several stages:

• As the fragrance of the dry grounds.
• As the aroma released after hot water is added.
• As the aroma perceived after breaking the crust before tasting.

The cupper identifies recognizable aromatic families and records their clarity and intensity using a shared sensory vocabulary.

Acidity

Acidity describes the lively, bright, or tart sensations produced by compounds dissolved in the brewed coffee. Its quality, intensity, and relationship with sweetness are considered during scoring.

Body

Body is the perceived weight and texture of the coffee in the mouth. Descriptors might include light, heavy, creamy, or syrupy, depending on the character and intensity of the sensation.

Flavor

Flavor integrates taste and aroma. A flavor wheel can help move from broad categories to specific descriptions, such as:

• Sweet to cocoa to dark chocolate.
• Floral to black tea or rose.
• Fruity to citrus to orange.

Aftertaste

Aftertaste describes the sensations that remain after swallowing or spitting out the coffee. The evaluator considers:

• Which flavors remain.
• Their intensity.
• How long they persist.
• Whether they remain pleasant and consistent.

Roast Color and the Agtron Scale

Roast color can be recorded using the Agtron scale, which measures light reflected from roasted coffee in whole-bean or ground form. Lower values indicate darker coffee because less light is reflected; higher values indicate lighter roasts. Recording roast color helps establish another repeatable condition when comparing cupping results.