Cupping - next day after roasting?

#1: Post by **swder** » May 21st, 2020, 10:27 pm

Hi roasters, I am new at this here. May I know whats the purpose of cupping the next day after roasting?

I read that the flavours of the coffee can still be muted and will taste grassy at this point and will take a few days more to develop.If that is so, what are we trying to get here?

I have also been advised to only cup the next day, after that, we should brew our coffee instead of cupping.

Do you practice this as well?

#2: Post by **Rickpatbrown** » May 22nd, 2020, 10:26 am

I am by no means an expert on cupping, but I have regularly started to incorporate the practise into my strategy. I have started roasting 1 bean 3 different ways, testing a variable (charge temp, roast length, development %, etc.).

Cupping is mainly to identify roasting outcomes, it's not to taste the best flavor coffee. That being said, I havent had a "bad" cupping roast turn into a "good" brew.

It also seems that roasting errors are even more prominent the day after. I'm not overwhelmed with the great coffee flavors. They are there, just subdued. I've waited a couple days after roasting and it's a bit harder to determine some differences (but maybe that experiment didnt yield huge taste differences... I dont have a ton of experience). Roasty, bitter notes are particularly more obvious and they seem to subdue a few days off roast.

It is also for consistency and gives you quickest feedback. Especially, if you were production roasting, you'd want to know right away how your roast went. For home roasters, we dont want to wait 1 day sometimes and 4 days others. It will be even harder ri compare our results. The name of the game for cupping is consistency.

In a perfect world, you would have both cupping notes and side by side brew notes to dial in roasts for your specific brew method. This is a lot of work, but the more intentional feedback you can insert into the loop, the better and more quickly better your coffee will become.

With that in mind, I dont see a problem with cupping multiple times (day 1, day 3, day 5, etc). I'm not sure if anything would change, but at least it would convince you of the best time to cup.

#3: Post by **Boldjava** » May 22nd, 2020, 11:48 am

Cupping is an industry practice which is used to eliminate coffees based on defects and identify coffees with good characteristics.

In my experience, cupping at 24 hours is a very hard task. I have done it repeatedly at importers and with friends. I have had cupping classes from more than one Q grader. I find it a difficult task which requires discipline and daily effort rather than occasional experience.

Importers go after a coffee at 24 hours for efficiency based on volume. As a home roaster, I don't have to do that. I have the luxury of allowing the coffee to off gas for 3-4 days where the coffee will be more revealing.

Even now (15 years playing around as home roaster), I am reapplying myself with discipline to cupping. More attentive, more alert, more frequency, more structure. But at 3-4 days off-gas, not 24 hours. No need for that. Cup them and home-brew (vacpot) them.

I am hesitant to take the advice of people who say, "Don't cup unless you are cupping at 24 hours." Not too much room for rule makers any more at my coffee table.

May 24th, 2020, 4:42 am

I find it confusing and frustrating...I am trying to cup everyday now to see what happens and this is what I found so far.

I roasted 4 batches of coffee a few days ago.
Day 1 : I find that the roasts are grassy and tasteless. I could not tell much different of it.
Day 2 : I could taste the acidity, sweetness and after taste of the coffee but flavors are still muted. Batch 2 and batch 4 were the ok ones but batch 4 was better with good balance of acidity and sweetness and good aftertaste, batch 2 just had a little less of everything compared to batch 4. Batches 1 & 3 was flat.
Day 3 : I did not cup batches 1 & 3 because it was flat on day 2. Batches 2 & 4 became the total opposite! Batch 2 became better than batch 4! Flavors are still muted. This got me confused....

It gets overwhelming for me because I do not know what to expect. I had a friend who cupped with me and we got the same results and now we are confused...

I was hoping if someone could advice me on the following
1) Is it normal that the characters will change in the first few days like what happened to batches 2 & 4 on day 3? The characteristics became totally opposite.

2) I've also had roasts that I cupped that did not taste burnt or roasty on the first week, but became burnt and roasty about 2-3weeks after. I am wondering if you guys get this too?

3) May I know what are the types of defects that you can detect (other than burnt flavors)?

I want to improve. I am a home roaster but I do hope I can open a roastery in the near future. I am wondering how do people in the business do it. I know i need alot of practice but for now, cupping on the first day seems pointless to me

#5: Post by **hannson** » May 24th, 2020, 5:29 am

Hi

First of all, kudos for cupping everyday and sharing your experience and findings with us.

It's interesting because each batch yielded different results , which is probably a test of how consistent the green beans were (there are organic and not gmo lol) as well as how consistent your roast were (and it will not be identical).

I do drink my coffee right after the roasted beans cools and had delicious results. (for me) .

As a home roaster, for me, being able to drink fresh roasted coffee is a blessing!

And whilst it does taste different after the passage of time, I can't say whether it's better or worse, as tastes are personal.

Cheers

#6: Post by **Boldjava** » May 24th, 2020, 9:30 am

swder wrote:I find it confusing and frustrating...I am trying to cup everyday now to see what happens and this is what I found so far.

I roasted 4 batches of coffee a few days ago.
Day 1 : I find that the roasts are grassy and tasteless. I could not tell much different of it. ..I want to improve...I know i need alot of practice but for now, cupping on the first day seems pointless to me :(

Practice, practice, practice. We all experienced the inability to make much distinction at early cupping efforts. Second, cup within groups. Your learning will go up exponentially I can assure. Put some efforts into putting a group together.

#7: Post by **another_jim** » May 24th, 2020, 9:49 pm

One thing about a roaster or importer doing formal cupping after 24 hours ... The coffees are ground, put into the cupping bowls and laid out well before the cupping starts. Then another period of time is spent inspecting the greens, the roasted beans, and the grounds. My guess is that the coffee is ground about an hour before it is steeped. After the crust is broken, it's tyoically another 15 minutes before everyone is doen slurping and spitting. This gives the coffees a chance to degas and develop, and they will loose some of their dullness and grassiness.

Also, anyone who doesn't wait ten minutes before trying the coffee once the crust is broken is wasting their time. It all just "tastes like coffee" until it has cooled to nearly room temperature. One of the many reasons cupping in groups works better is simply that enough time is spent chit chatting for the coffee to get right.

#8: Post by **false1001** » May 24th, 2020, 10:26 pm

Cup whenever you want, however you want. As you've already discovered, cupping at different times after roast will produce different roasts. The important thing is just to be reasonably consistent with your timing if you want to compare or contrast coffees. Whenever I sell beans I will cup every day like you did for a couple of days, so I know when that coffee starts to peak and I can do apples-to-apples comparisons of future roasts.

#9: Post by **Mbb** » May 24th, 2020, 10:53 pm

There are beans, roast that are best the day after
And there others that are better several days later

It depends what you like

#10: Post by **edpiep** » May 25th, 2020, 12:20 pm

For formal QC cuppings, ground coffee must not be left in the cupping bowl for more than 15 minutes without a lid. Lids on the bowls keep the aromatics trapped in the bowls a little longer. 24 hours is a good window to cup a coffee for defects and sensory analysis (this would be sample roast cuppings). Green grading is done separately from cuppings. Also QC cuppings require systematics to maintain consistency. 4 minutes from first pour is the break, another 4 minutes after skim is a good time to slurp (really about not burning your tongue). Three passes total is a good measure of a coffee at different temps. *These are the condensed formal cupping rules, these are not the cupping commandments that every human must adhere to when cupping any coffee anywhere.*
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If you want to cup for yourself to learn, just make a system that works for you with certain constants in place (like grind size, bowl and dose size plus your pour progression, skim and pass times) and stick to it. Unless you are actually sample roasting for QC purposes, most cuppings are used for creating brewing profiles for coffees. Cupping every day to see the progression of a roast is good practice and help keep your palate active. Doing initial cuppings of a coffee of say 3 different roasts of the same charge weight is good for profile production assuming you have goals for each roast.

If a coffee tastes flat or roasty a day off roast its most likely because it's baked or over-developed (unless you want some roast notes to show up). If it's grassy or vegetal it most likely is baked or underdeveloped. Since roast quality strongly affects coffee's flavor if your coffee isn't tasting like anything 1,2,3 days off roast then it's most likely baked. It is possible to have your coffee taste like more than fog if it's cupped 24 hours off roast, it is really about roast quality though.