What is Coffee Cupping?

     I kept the hearing the term "coffee cupping" around me and I was too embarrassed to ask what it meant.  So, I did what anybody would do who doesn't want to betray how little he knows - I bought a book on coffee and read up on it!Coffee cupping is the process of coffee tasting that roasters do in order to profile a specific lot that a farmer has produced.  When I lived in Portland, Oregon, I was fortunate enough to tour that year's Roaster of the Year by Roast Magazine, Portland Roasting Coffee.  Andy Davis of PRC not only showed me what they do and how they do it, but he also treated me to my first ever coffee cupping experience.Read: My First Cupping ExperienceCheck out the article above to learn the process of coffee cupping.  It was a very cool experience.  But, why is it important?  For a couple reasons.

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     First of all, wherever you buy your coffee, there was likely a cupping that took place in order to evaluate that coffee before a large amount of it was purchased from the importer.  After all, coffee is purchased in large quantities, but before that happens, a professional cupper is going to need to make sure it is the coffee they're looking for.  Your local roaster does so with a small sample that is provided in order to evaluate the much larger quantity that the roaster will buy.Second, coffee cupping is used in competitions such as the Cup of Excellence that I talked about in a recent post.  In such a competition, each farmer submits their best lot, and the cupping process is used to evaluate each one, and pick a winner.  There is no other process that so clearly qualifies a coffee before it ends up in your home, and in your cup.Read: What is the Cup of Excellence? - for everyday coffee drinkers