baldheadracing wrote: (I haven't made a purchase decision based on scores in quite a while, but I remain tempted.)

I never look at the scores anymore. I am interested in potential flavor and body profiles. I then roast it the best I can, making adjustments the next time, but generally staying within some boundaries of drop temps (or color values). Then on to the next one, since that coffee will likely not be available to me long.

Where I live availability of direct trade of good quality and somewhat affordable enough greens is not high as it is, it would probably evaporate if I wanted decent scores too...I have a supplier that has a good 'nose' in picking greens.
Currently I'm smitten with a Myanmar (don't start on that one) that resembles a Yirga blueberry bomb.

baldheadracing wrote:
...One reads the marketing from the importer/distributor and opinions of others who have already roasted that particular coffee and that is all that one can go by to make a buying decision. So now one has 5 - 10 - 20 pounds of green. What's next?

This is the question I would like to see answers to. I would be interested to hear what approach many of you here would take with 10 roasts worth of green.

I do a first roast picking charge temp based on a similar green and then take my first whack at it aiming for a "pretty" curve and see what the green gives me. Assuming it is an easy roast I will look to drop it at a temp of a similar green that I liked. Then I will cup it and see if I think it might be better darker, lighter, or if I need to make any gas adjustments to help my curve look better. Next roast I will do 2 or 3 batches with one same as my first attempt but aiming for a better curve if necessary, and the other(s) with a drop temp at least 4 degrees F higher or lower. Then I will cup them and see which roast is my favorite.

So I am 40% done with my supply before I have found my target and hopefully ideal roast plan.

Royal Coffee NY does not offer cupping scores per se, but have a very practical sliding scale of acidity, body and sweetness from low to average to above average to high to very high for each. I have found their assessments to be pretty accurate. If anything, their "misses" are on the low end, where an average acidity coffee might really shine.

I roast all coffees to the same two roast profiles. Light roasts drop around 388*F, dark roasts 415*F. Roast plans differ for each bean in order to make them fit the profile, but the end product is either a 70 Agtron for light roast or a 50 for darker. This gives my coffee a signature theme and the only variation is the flavor of the coffee, not the roast.

FWIW, I find that "tweener" roasts, that fall somewhere in the middle, lack the desirable qualities of either roast.

There's a lot of stuff covered on this thread, and it would take a lot to get through it, so I'll just offer a few short sentences.

First up, I to answer the narrow question, I did the best of panama cupping over the weekend at proud mary, with the samples roasted on the nucleus link/kaffelogic prototype. We cupped 1-10 of each of the three categories. I didn't score properly; there were a lot of people and some pressure to move through to allow everyone a turn. But of course we ended up trading notes. Most people were industry professionals, though many were not Q graders. But many were green buyers. GW10 (the 10th place washed geisha) seemed to be the strong crowd favourite. That scored something like 92 point something, whereas the top lot scored 96.5.

To address, but not answer, the broader questions, every time we get a discussion of scoring and quality on this site, it seems that we get the same sort of fatalistic straw man arguments. I'm going to unfairly and unreasonably straw man them myself, so critique away, but hopefully it will illustrate my point. The argument seems to go something like in one particular instance you got a score and you didn't agree with it 100%, therefore the emperor has no clothes.

Well, for starters, the scores you got were probably crappily put together by someone who wanted to sell the coffee, and there's a good chance it's probably someone who simultaneously scoffs at the idea and expense of Q calibration or doing COE and yet also wants to free ride by using their score systems. Unless they would offer you a full refund if you asserted that what you received scored lower, you should probably ignore their scores.

Next, you have to evaluate the effectiveness of the system against the way in which it is intended to be used. So let's say you wanted a huge bodied, super sweet and nutty espresso, with low acidity. Your choices are 84.00 point Daterra sweet collection bourbon OR 92.25 point Esmeralda washed geisha. You buy the Esmeralda. Emperor has no clothes, you scream, as you chug back an espresso that has some nice floral and fruit aromas to it, but is acidic and low in body. Well that one's on you. If you were calibrated to the system, you would have understood it better. If you had insisted on the full score sheets, which is the point, you probably would have seen that the sweet collection was lower in acidity, higher in body, and really much more what you wanted. (If you had brewed it as filter coffee, the Esmeralda would have been the better of the two.)

luca wrote: So let's say you wanted a huge bodied, super sweet and nutty espresso, with low acidity. Your choices are 84.00 point Daterra sweet collection bourbon OR 92.25 point Esmeralda washed geisha. You buy the Esmeralda. Emperor has no clothes, you scream, as you chug back an espresso that has some nice floral and fruit aromas to it, but is acidic and low in body. Well that one's on you. If you were calibrated to the system, you would have understood it better.

Beautifully put. People tend to think of the coffee score as incremental like a grade or IQ, which helps marketing, but does not help you predict taste. Spider graphs are more meaningful, in lieu of scoring sheets.

Back to the original post, I find 1.5 score range a bit tight. Maybe 2. And there is no +X, there's only -X. If you roast the greens to their full potential, then you have nailed it. There is no full potential + X. You can only take it downward from there.

I'm with Alan on this. I stick with one profile 90% of the time. If I get out of the box it seems the machine doesn't like it. Still trying to stay as close as possible to 45/35/20%.

I left the percentages, and aim for an approx 4min to Dry end, FC at around 7 min and drop at a temp of around 207'C (or a bit higher if a bean needs it).
I haven;t been able to correlate the 'development' number with taste, with drop temp I can tell the difference.
All influenced by Alan

Betcha that's close to my %

highly likely! it's just that the percentages are moving targets whereas the final drop temp is a fixed target...all in my head I know