Tasting
Coffee is often overshadowed by wine when most people talk about flavor experience, but it's a world of complexity in its own right. While wine has about 250 compounds shaping its taste, coffee boasts over 800 distinct flavors and tastes. Professional coffee graders use a simplified system to categorize coffee flavors for evaluation and comparison. However, everyone is different and there are no good or bad flavors or aromas, if you enjoy it then it’s good coffee!
Cupping
Cupping is just the method by which graders evaluate roasted coffee through a standardized process. Everyone has their own spin on how they cup because everyone has different tools available and different goals in mind. What is important is that you are able to glean important information and that you do it the same way each time.
The basic steps involve grinding a set amount of roasted coffee into 3 small bowls, 2 spoons to sample, and a 4th rinsing bowl to clean off the spoons between sampling. Then evaluate each of the fresh grounds, add a set amount of hot water, wait for a bit, scoop off the top layer of coffee grounds, wait a bit more for it to cool to maximize the flavors and aromas, and finally, you start smelling and tasting each of the 3 cups.
