Is there a standard roast profile used for cupping? I know it's light, at the end of first crack, but I'd like to know if there's a common ramp to get there. Is it the same in Brazil as Rwanda and Bali?

CHAD

This is my standard that works for me. I use a fast roast profile for what the beans can take, No stretching, to various levels of c+ for any bean that can be lighter roasted. And with beans that will need to go darker I'll let the beans just smooth out in early full city. If it's a bean that I'm only going to buy more if it works at city I will roast my sample to city. If there's something I'm not going to like, or shines, it usually shows up. If I like it I'll do a profile roast or two.

I am going off topic a little here and will next do a search under home roasting to see if this question is addressed.

My comment is that a cupper's roast (IMHO) is very different to the coffee roasted for actual drinking. I can believe that undesirable characteristics can be detected that will be present in other roast styles, but how can the cupper's roast showcase characteristics that aren't there until the roast is brought further along?

The SCAA standard for a cupping roast is agtron 58 on the bean exterior, and agtron 63 ground. The lighter the agtron, the lighter the roast, the bigger the difference between whole bean and ground, the faster the roast. The specification translates, for small drum roasters, roughly to a 375 to 400 drop in, an 8 to 10 minutes length, and an end as the first crack is tailing off.

Asking how a cupping roast can be used to tell what the roast flavor is going to be like is an excellent question. The simple answer is it cannot. This style of cupping is used to rate the coffee, not to determine the best roast. Since even mediocre coffees can develop good roast flavors given competent roasting, rating coffee is based entirely on the origin flavors most clinically revealed at these light roasts. A roaster will probably do deeper trial roasts, using his sample roaster but not a standard cupping profile, in order to decide how to do the production roasts.

For Coffeecuppers reviews, I use a standard cupping roast. For coffees I plan to roast for myself, I roast a minute or two longer, and about 5 to 10F darker (I go by smell). This is still well before the 2nd crack and designed for brewing, but it does tell me what the roast flavors and the espresso shot will be like.

Thanks Jim, this is helpful - in a sense. I find that different coffees are varying darkness at a given temperature. I might have a Sumatra that seems lighter than an African, but they were roasted with a similar profile to the same final temperature. Not to mention the variety of colors within an Ethiopian DP roast itself.

Because a coffee tastes amazing, or is lacking at a very light roast on the cupping table, does this necessarily mean it is great or poor at a darker roast? Cupping roast can highlight defects, but is it more than a very general guide to the flavor profile? I don't know. I ask because of the very wide range of flavor descriptors in some green coffee offerings. One would assume that in order to recreate these, the roast would need to be replicated as well.

CHAD

Bottom Line: Using a light roast of some sort to judge your coffees is absolutely mandatory.

The Long Version: If you look at the taster's wheel, darker roasts tend to move all the flavors clock wise; but you can't always predict from a lighter roast which flavors will show up at the darker ones.

However, the point of cupping is is not to taste for all flavors, but for the desirable and rare flavors. About 50% of all coffees grown will taste of chocolate and caramel when roasted to the beginning of the second crack; and they sell for around $0.50 to $1 per pound green. Cuppers don't give a flying F about these flavors; you just have to throw a dart at the offering sheet of an importer, and you'll have successfully "sourced" a coffee that tastes of caramel and chocolate. About 0.05% of all coffees grown will be bursting with fruit, floral, and exotic perfumed aromas, and taste like a desert wine in the cup. These coffees will start at $5 per pound and get up to over $100 per pound green. Cupping is designed to spot these coffees.

On the other side of the quality divide, where home roasters rarely venture, are the 25% or so of all coffees that have serious flaws and sell for pennies per pound, not dollars per pound. At longer and darker roasts, flawed coffees mostly taste like cardboard, and that's what roasters who use them do with them. Light and fast roasts reveal the specific taints and allow for the farmers and processors to make the needed improvements

The relation of color to temperature does vary. African coffees tend to get milk chocolate dark at the beginning of the first crack, while Sumatran coffees will stay pale until the end of the 2nd. Their cupping roasts will not adhere to the Agtron standards set by the SCAA, which is meant for Q-contract coffees, all of which are sourced in the Americas. In practice, all formal cupping is done with multiple coffees from just one origin, since it is designed to to pick the best and eliminate the rest. A color analyzer is used to ensure that every ground sample looks identical; if samples are visibly different in degree of roast, the protocol is for samples to be reroasted.

If you are cupping coffees and doing sample roasts for anything except picking from samples from a single origin, then the protocol of comparing very tightly specified and identical light roasts loses much of its justification. However, since darker roast flavors are generic and lighter roast origin flavors are unique, using light roasts to judge the quality of a coffee is still absolutely mandatory, no matter what the circumstances.

I appreciate your time spent answering my questions. This is very useful, new information to me, and helpful for my understanding of the industry. Much obliged, Jim.

CHAD

Indeed, Jim, thanks. I second what Chad just said.

I have been to some cafes that offer cuppings to showcase their coffees. I like the experience but it is plainly not the same as what is done by cupping before bringing a coffee to market.

Thanks Jim, very interesting.

I wonder then if there are two different standards for cupping, one for demo coffees in retail, and one for demo for commercial purposes (auction maybe). The tutorial youtube videos about cupping seem to use dark roasts probably because they can only use what they are given. Thus, a retailer can only cup dark roast (in relation to real light roast cupping) since they don't have access to a roaster. Only a roaster equipped with a sampler roaster can do real cupping. I even remember that when I went to CounterCulture they used the beans that were going to sell probably because it would take a lot of effort to roast small batches.

If we were to evaluate coffees from lets say Vivace or CounterCulture, and give them a rating, should they send a 'cupping' roast instead of their 'regular' roast? I think maybe one type focuses on the bean (light roast) and the other in the roast (retail).

Cheers

I think I understand the problem here. Carefully tasting coffee is something you can and should do all the time; cupping coffee is a very narrow and specialized procedure. Let me sharply distinguish the two and deromanticize formal cupping

A full cupping protocol includes precise grading, roasting, brewing, and scoring standards. It is a quality control and inspection procedure designed to compare different lots of green coffee from the same origin.

Light roasts: Since buyers know what darker roasts from each origin and varietal taste like; they cup at light roasts to exclude fermented or unripe lots, and occasionally to find the star lot.

Open Bowl Cupping, Slurp and Spit If you want to drink lots of different coffees at once, it's easiest to brew them open bowl style. If multiple people are tasting, it's more sanitary to use a spoon than to drink from cups. If you are sampling dozens or even hundreds of cups, you need to spit, not swallow.

At the SCAA cupping pavillion, a flight of coffee is attended by six to eight cuppers. Five cups each of four to six different coffees are brewed. The protocol requires tasting all five cups of each coffee to judge uniformity (although it's pointless here, since these are auction and competition coffees and won't have flaws). This procedure is repeated over the course of one to two days, until each judge has tasted the 25 to 30 submissions.

At the New York Coffee Exchange it's a lot worse: the five cup scenario is repeated for hundreds of coffees each day, and the board graders have to take thousands of slurps and spits each day. On the other hand, they only have to grade each coffee as a yes or no, not on a 0 to 100 scale.

Public Cupping Events So you see, there is nothing very romantic or mysterious about cupping; it's the only viable way to get a mostly tedious inspection and quality control procedure done. When a cafe serves their coffees cupping style rather than just handing out them out in sample cups, they are not cupping, they are having a publicity event.

Cupping at Roasters Larger and more professionalized small roasters have cupping labs -- an area with a sample roaster, a cupping table, and cupping supplies -- and they use it for several purposes. The first is to buy green coffees, where they will use their version of a full cupping protocol. The second is to create blends, and production roasts, where they will brew different roast levels of different coffees, and use eyedroppers or other measuring devices to try out different blend proportions. The third is QC on their production roasting, where they cup a sample of each production roast against a reference to make sure it's right.

Whereas formal cupping is silent, and each grader rates independently; cupping at roasters is much more convivial and relaxed, with people sharing their opinions and trying to come to a consensus. The most successful labs use the old university seminar trick of starting with the most junior person at the table and working up to the most senior, so that everyone can speak without being intellectually bullied or overborne.