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Cupping is the professional method used by roasters, buyers, and baristas worldwide to evaluate coffee. At Bear Grounds Roastery, it's how we assess every lot before it earns a place in our lineup. The good news? You don't need a lab or a Q-grader certification to cup coffee at home — just a few simple tools, some curiosity, and a good form to guide you.
This guide walks you through the SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) cupping protocol and how to use the standard scoring form to evaluate any coffee — including our single-origin offerings.
What Is Coffee Cupping?
Cupping is a standardized tasting method that lets you evaluate coffee objectively across multiple attributes. By using the same protocol every time, you can compare coffees side by side, track how your palate develops, and start to understand what makes a great cup.
What You'll Need
- Freshly roasted whole bean coffee (ground just before cupping)
- A kitchen scale
- A kettle (water at ~200°F / 93°C)
- Cupping bowls or wide-mouthed mugs (6–8 oz)
- Cupping spoons
- A timer
- The SCA Cupping Form (below)
- A rinse cup for your spoon
The SCA Cupping Protocol
Step 1 — Grind & Dose: Use a medium-coarse grind. Dose 8.25g of coffee per 150ml of water (roughly a 1:18 ratio).
Step 2 — Evaluate Dry Fragrance: Before adding water, smell the dry grounds. Note the intensity and any aromas — floral, fruity, nutty, chocolatey, spicy.
Step 3 — Add Water & Evaluate Wet Aroma: Pour water at ~200°F directly onto the grounds. Start your timer. At 3–5 minutes, break the crust by pushing it with your spoon and inhale deeply. Note the wet aroma.
Step 4 — Skim & Wait: Remove the foam and floating grounds. Wait until the coffee cools to ~160°F (about 8–10 minutes total).
Step 5 — Slurp & Evaluate: Use your cupping spoon to slurp the coffee — the slurp aerates it and spreads it across your palate. Evaluate flavor, aftertaste, acidity, body, and balance. Continue tasting as the coffee cools to room temperature.
The SCA Cupping Form — Scoring Attributes
The SCA form scores coffee on a 100-point scale across the following attributes (each scored 6–10):
| Attribute | What to Evaluate | Score (6–10) |
|---|---|---|
| Fragrance / Aroma | Dry grounds (fragrance) and wet aroma after adding water. Intensity and quality of scent. | |
| Flavor | The main impression of the coffee — the full range of taste and aroma perceived during slurping. | |
| Aftertaste | The length and quality of positive flavor that lingers after swallowing. | |
| Acidity | The brightness or liveliness of the coffee. Can be pleasant (citric, malic) or harsh. Note intensity and quality. | |
| Body | The tactile weight and texture of the coffee on your palate — light, medium, or heavy/syrupy. | |
| Balance | How well the flavor, aftertaste, acidity, and body complement each other without one dominating. | |
| Uniformity | Consistency across multiple cups of the same coffee (score each of 5 cups). | |
| Clean Cup | Absence of negative impressions from first ingestion to final aftertaste. | |
| Sweetness | A full, caramel-like sweetness — not the same as sugary. Score each of 5 cups. | |
| Overall | Your holistic impression — a reflection of how the coffee exceeded or met your expectations. | |
| Defects | Taint (minor, score ×2) or Fault (major, score ×4). Subtract from total. | |
| Final Score | Sum of all attributes − Defect penalties. Specialty = 80+ |
Scoring Guide
- 6.00 — Good
- 7.00 — Very Good
- 8.00 — Excellent
- 9.00 — Outstanding
Try It With Our Single-Origin Coffees
Single-origin coffees are ideal for cupping because their terroir-driven flavor profiles give you distinct, identifiable characteristics to evaluate. Our Ethiopian and Sumatra single-origins are excellent candidates — the Ethiopian will challenge your ability to identify floral and fruit-forward notes, while the Sumatra will have you exploring body, earthiness, and low acidity.
Pick up a bag, brew a few cups side by side, and put this form to work. You might be surprised how quickly your palate develops.
Don't Overlook the Blends
Single-origins get most of the cupping spotlight, but our Bear Grounds blends are equally worth evaluating — and in some ways, they're the perfect starting point.
Blends are crafted to hit specific flavor targets, which makes them excellent calibration tools. When you cup a blend, you're training your palate to recognize intentional balance: how sweetness offsets acidity, how body supports a long finish, how individual components disappear into something greater than the sum of their parts.
Try these Bear Grounds blends on your cupping table:
- Chocoberry Bliss — Look for the interplay between chocolate depth and berry brightness. A great exercise in identifying sweetness and acidity working together.
- Citrus Sunrise — A lively, fruit-forward cup. Focus on acidity and fragrance — this one rewards careful attention at the wet aroma stage.
- S'more — Rich, dessert-like, and approachable. Use this to calibrate your body and aftertaste scores before moving to more complex coffees.
- Campfire Caramel — Smooth and sweet with a caramel finish. An ideal benchmark for balance and clean cup scores.
Pro tip: Start your cupping session with a blend to set your baseline, then move to single-origins to explore how terroir and process shape a cup differently. The contrast will sharpen your palate faster than cupping either alone.
Tame your taste buds — Vince BGR