Tom at SM did a video on tasting coffee
Also Jim did a nice piece cupping with George. Cupping with George Howell is an amazing experience.

Thanks again Jim. Are "reviews" cuppings? In what category would something like this fall?

http://www.coffeereview.com/allreviews.cfm?cupdate=

They use roasted coffee shipped (over 24 hrs) and rate it like in a wine fashion style (open the bag = open the bottle), noting that some of the roast degree is outside the SCAA cupping protocol and that the intensity of aroma reviewed depends on freshness.

Thanks

How many times does this need to be said?

• Cupping coffee is a specialized procedure for rating different green coffees from the same origin. It includes standards for grading the green coffee, roasting it, and scoring it; including calibration to standard samples from that origin.
• Tasting coffees can be done any way you like. If you rate the coffees for a web site, a roaster or for purchase, you should follow some consistent procedure which can include some or all elements of cupping. For instance, Ken Davids cannot grade the green, sample roast it to a standard depth of roast, or taste it at the same time out of the roaster. Therefore, the method he uses cannot be derived from cupping. I review green coffees; so I can adopt a lot of the procedure: I grade the green, roast them to a light cupping profile and taste them 24 hour hours post roast. I cannot always calibrate to known samples of the same origin, but I do calibrate to the most similar coffee I have, by including a blind sample of it on the cupping table and adjusting all the scores so its score stays constant.

In anything you do at home with coffee you first should think about "why" your doing it. What will it accomplish for you. A pro. Roaster may be looking for consistency of a particular taste from year to year (major for say DD) another smaller shop may focus on unique qualities and SO micro-lots. George Howells niche is a light,clean, unaffected cup so he sets up all the processes and tests needed. A pro Roaster has to think about what it's developed customer base will like. Josh at SM did one of their recent pairings roasts he called "Unsung heros". Outstanding coffees that weren't flying off the shelf. One of them was certainly a hero in my book.
Every time I drink one of my roasts I try to make it a "tasting". I must first think about what that particular cup can tell me that will be useful to remember. I'd say for most home roasting "tasting" is what's most important to practice. Why does it taste like it does and then what I might be able to do if I want it to taste different.
For a new home roaster I will suggest working around the start of 2nd crack and then working towards lighter or darker roasts that IMO are more challenging in both tasting and roasting.

I wanted to know: when I buy a bag of green coffee from Zephyr, and the rep says it stood out at the cupping table with 'thus and such' flavors which made the company decide to buy this lot of coffee - is there a standard cupping roast so I can taste those same flavors.


Jim you have answered my question: yes there are standards for cupping roasts, depending on the goal in mind. A cupping to decide a COE Award Winner will be different from a roaster trying to decide which of these coffees on the table he likes better, and different still from an online green coffee seller's description - since each scenario has a different goal.

CHAD

Jim and others, you've been of great help.

seedlings wrote:I wanted to know: when I buy a bag of green coffee from Zephyr, and the rep says it stood out at the cupping table with 'thus and such' flavors which made the company decide to buy this lot of coffee - is there a standard cupping roast so I can taste those same flavors.

If I may try to answer that one. The closest and simplest descrition for what, I believe, you are asking for, that I have found is in the Principle and standards for sample roasting of the Cupper' Manifesto.

http://yapame.com/cuppersmanifesto.pdf

The link was originally posted by Jim in another thread.

I do not think that home cupping for reference should be more complicated than that.