Have we as an industry fetishised coffee cupping?

Coffee cupping is a fundamental method for evaluating coffee and is essential in some industry practices. However, industry wide, it’s become an overused or even fetishised ritual. So, when is cupping genuinely useful, and when is it just a way to showcase professional status?

What is Coffee Cupping?

Cupping is a formalised method of tasting coffee: coarsely ground coffee is steeped in hot water, a crust forms, it's broken and removed, then the coffee is slurped from a spoon at timed intervals. Designed to minimise variables and brewing errors, it provides a consistent framework for assessing coffee quality across multiple samples. Despite its simple structure, cupping is often misunderstood, especially in the broader specialty coffee scene. While vital for parts of the supply chain, it’s sometimes overused by cafes and brewers eager to display expertise. In truth, its role is specific and limited.

Technically, cupping is a low-agitation immersion method using fixed ratios (typically 12g coffee to 200g water) and minimal interference. This consistency makes it easier to identify flavours and defects. Even a seemingly simple method like a French press introduces more variability, making it less reliable for objective evaluation.

But the very lack of control that makes cupping ideal for broad assessments is what makes it ineffective in many real-world coffee settings, particularly cafes. Cupping is not about producing the tastiest cup of coffee. It’s about seeing what’s in the coffee; faults, subtle nuances, green quality; before other variables like brew method, ratio, or technique are introduced.

Who uses Cupping?

Cupping is primarily used by traders, exporters, importers, roasters, and occasionally brewers. Farmers are notably absent from this list. Despite the fact that cupping would be immensely useful for producers seeking feedback on the quality of their crops, most lack access to even basic roasting and brewing equipment. This isn’t accidental. It's a lingering effect of the colonial systems that planted coffee across the global South but exported the wealth, and the tools to capture it, back to the global North. Most farmers were made custodians of a commodity they couldn’t fully evaluate or profit from, and in many producing countries, this imbalance continues.

Green buyers often encounter a coffee for the first time at the cupping table. In a line-up of 10, 20, or even 300 samples, certain coffees leap out through balance, brightness, or some unexpected qualities. These first impressions can be romantic but somewhat misleading. A coffee might seem remarkable in comparison to others but feel more ordinary when tasted in isolation. This dynamic matters: cupping tends to exaggerate distinctions, which is helpful when choosing between samples but less relevant once a coffee is on bar, standing alone.

Formal cupping, especially in trade, often leans into the Specialty Coffee Association’s 100-point scoring system. Coffees are evaluated across categories such as aroma, flavour, acidity, body, and balance, along with cleanliness, uniformity, and sweetness. Points are subtracted for taints and faults. Coffees scoring above 80 points are deemed “specialty.” But this system, while useful, can’t be fully globalised, cultural preferences inevitably shape taste and scoring. Even certified Q Graders, who undergo rigorous training and reassessment, often bring local biases to the table. No score is truly universal and no scoring system can be perfect.

Triangulation (comparing multiple cups of the same coffee to spot inconsistencies) is helpful for identifying faults. One good example of this practice is to identify the East African “potato” defect; a defect that can dominate a brew caused by a single tainted bean. But this is an exception, not the norm.

Cupping as a tool for Roasters

For roasters, cupping is closer to triage than romance. When a roastery is handling 20 or more batches a day, cupping becomes an essential quality control process. The daily goal isn’t to generate poetic tasting notes, it’s to flag any roast defects, monitor consistency, and detect problems early. The methodology needs to be simple, repeatable, and fast. Cupping delivers just that.

Tasting notes also come out of this process, but they aren’t gospel. Roasters generally aren’t chasing hyper accurate notes of “white peach and lilac” they’re trying to communicate where the coffee sits in a flavour spectrum: light and acidic? Dense and chocolatey? These notes help guide customers and baristas, but they’re contextual, not absolute. The way a roaster extracts the coffee is unlikely to match the way someone brews it in the cafe, or at home. And that’s okay. What matters is giving people realistic expectations and useful reference points. Chasing tasting notes that don’t show up in your cup, because of water quality, grind, or brew method, leads only to frustration.

We think it is useful to suggest to our customers to mostly ignore the notes and tell us what you taste.

Cupping in the Cafe

In a cafe setting, cupping is almost always unnecessary. In the day to day running of a cafe, the inclusion of a cupping session doesn’t deliver much practical value. Yet, in many coffee professionals' eyes, coffee cupping has become a way to project professionalism or participate in the “specialty” aesthetic, but in reality cupping has become at best a fun social gathering and a theatrical performance. Staff slurping from spoons, discussing minute flavour differences, it looks impressive but rarely changes anything operational.

The truth is, cafes are better served brewing coffees the way customers will actually drink them. Using standard recipes, checking extraction with a refractometer, and dialing in for consistent flavour is a far more effective way to ensure quality. 

However, there are occasional scenarios where cupping serves a specific purpose. One such instance is when it’s used to isolate the coffee from the brewing equipment and technique. In these cases, cupping can help determine whether an issue lies with the coffee itself, rather than with variables like grind size, water temperature, or extraction method. That said, this approach is best reserved as a last resort, a diagnostic tool rather than a routine practice.

Final thoughts

Cupping is practical when assessing multiple coffees with limited samples (typically just 80 grams roasted). Like sample roasting, it’s not about making the perfect cup, but about getting a quick, repeatable broad snapshot of a coffee's qualities.

It’s a useful tool for comparing samples, quality control, roast evaluation, and spotting defects but it’s not how people drink coffee. Cupping shouldn’t be idolised as the “proper” way to taste. In a café, professionalism looks like consistent brewing, regular tasting, and clear, honest communication with customers. 

Roasters should be cautious when promoting cupping as the pinnacle of coffee tasting through events like public cuppings. While they can be fun and educational, they risk creating a skewed perception that cupping is the purest or most correct way to enjoy coffee. At best, these events enhance appreciation; at worst, they intimidate and alienate casual drinkers.

Cupping is for understanding coffee. Brewing is for enjoying it. Know the difference and use each accordingly.