How to Cup Coffee at Home
Cupping is the coffee world's tasting method. It's how we choose which coffees to buy, how we check every roast, and how thousands of people around the world will taste The Fermentation Project together on 3 October.
The best part? It needs almost no equipment. No fancy dripper, no scale obsession, no barista skills. A bowl, a spoon, hot water, and your nose.
Here's how it works.
What you need
- 12g of coffee per cup
- 200 ml of water at 93°C
- Medium-coarse grind — a bit coarser than filter, like coarse sand
- Bowls or cups (use identical cups if possible)
-
Spoons — a soup spoon works, a proper cupping spoon is nicer
A note on Water
Water has a huge impact on tasting. Having suitable water for coffee brewing will improve the tasting experience. If you don't have filtered or water drops make sure the water is relatively soft and neutral tasting. Tipp: check with your AI of trust which local water brand is most suitable.
The steps
1. Grind and pour
Grind fresh, directly into the bowl. Give it a sniff before the water goes in — the dry fragrance tells you a lot already.
Then pour 200 ml of water over the grounds, making sure everything gets wet. Don't stir.
2. Wait 4 minutes
A crust forms on top: a layer of grounds and foam holding all the aromatics underneath. Let it sit.
3. Break the crust — and smell while you do it
This is the best moment in cupping. Put your nose right above the bowl, then push the crust back gently with your spoon and stir three times.
4. Skim the foam
Use two spoons to lift off the foam and floating grounds from the surface. You want a clean liquid to taste.
5. Wait couple of minutes, then slurp
Let the coffee cool. This matters more than people expect: hot coffee hides things. As it drops toward room temperature, acidity, sweetness and body all become much easier to read.
Then slurp — loudly, aggressively, unapologetically. Spraying the coffee across your palate spreads it over your whole tongue and carries the aromatics up into your nose. It feels ridiculous. It works and makes you look soooooo professional.
Taste each coffee more than once as it cools. A coffee that seemed flat at 70°C often opens up completely at 40°C.
What to pay attention to
You don't need a formal scoring sheet. Ask yourself four simple questions:
- Fragrance/Aroma — what does it smell like? Do I like the smell?
- Acidity — is it bright and juicy, or soft and round?
- Body/Mouthfeel — does it feel light and tea-like, or thick and syrupy?
- Flavour — what does it actually remind you of? Fruit? Chocolate? Something floral? You can also print out a version of the SCA Flavor Wheel.
There are no wrong answers. Your reference points are your own — if a coffee tastes like the plum jam your grandmother made, write down plum jam.
If you want to use a sheet:
Why cup side by side
Tasting one coffee tells you what it's like. Tasting four next to each other tells you what makes each one different — and that's where the learning happens.
It's exactly the logic behind The Fermentation Project: one coffee from Guatemala, four fermentation protocols, everything else held constant. Same farm, same varieties, same altitude, same roast profile, roasted on the same day. The only variable is fermentation.
Set them up in a row, cup them blind, and the differences that seemed abstract on paper suddenly land in your mouth.
A few practical tips
- If you want to cup blind: Number your bowls and note which is which on a piece of paper you turn over. Cupping blind removes a surprising amount of bias.
- Rinse your spoon in clean water between coffees.
- Don't skip the cool-down. Most people taste too early and miss the best window.
- Write things down as you go. You'll forget cup one by the time you reach cup four.
- Cup with someone else. Comparing notes is half the fun, and you'll notice things you'd have missed alone.
Cupping isn't a test you can fail. It's just a structured way of paying attention — and once you've done it a few times, you'll taste your everyday coffee differently too.
Here is also a useful video by James Hoffmann:
