Cupping with the CoffeeMeister

by Erin Meister, Posted Jun 17th 2009 @ 3:00PM

Erin Meister trains baristas for North Carolina-based Counter Culture Coffee and sporadically maintains the blog Meet the Press Pot from her home in New York City. This is the sixth in a series of tips for the caffeine-addicted.

Early in our relationship, whenever I told my husband I was headed to a cupping, he (a coffee lover but not a fanatic like me) would imagine something, er, otherwise-related. Now that he knows cupping as a coffee-tasting ritual he might be disappointed -- or relieved -- but at least he understands why I'm a bit jittery when I come home from one.

The cupping process traces back to the 19th century, when beans were graded basically on a "yes" or "no" scale: Too many defects (like disease or mold) earned an ix-nay, while just about everything else was considered acceptable.

Today, cupping serves several different purposes: At the coffee's point of origin it allows farmers, importers, brokers and roasters to test the quality of a crop; after roasting, the roasters themselves will cup coffees for consistency, flavor profile and to detect the effects of aging; and at the consumer level, coffee cuppings are the rough (and fun!) equivalent of wine tastings, and are becoming widely available to the public.

Coffee is one of the most complex things we consume, clocking in at more than 1,000 aromatic compounds (compared to red wine's 600-800), and analyzing those compounds can be tricky business.

Cuppers sniff, slurp and spit in search of defining traits like fragrance, body, flavor, aftertaste and acidity (the fruit-like brightness, or "pop" of a coffee), as well as nosing (and taste-budding) out defects like infestation and under- or over-ripeness. It can be super eye-opening -- especially if your idea of different coffee origins are Folgers and Maxwell House.

Above is a video of me demonstrating the art of (ahem) cupping.

Filed Under: Drink Recipes, How To, Tastings
Tags: coffee, coffee cupping, CoffeeCupping, CoffeeMeister, cupping, meister

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

6-20-2009 @12:35PM Sarah-Jane said... Fun video and article. I've always wondered about cupping. I look forward to you telling us a bit about what you discover after cupping coffee. i.e. What you're writing on the clipboard!
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