hi there today we're going to talk about
how to set up a coffee cupping at home
now a coffee cupping is a specific sort
of coffee tasting used really commonly
in the coffee industry at all sections
of the value chain it really refers to a
specific way of brewing as well as
tasting and we're not going to try and
replicate all of it we're going to
cherry-pick the best bits so that we can
put on a really simple cupping and do
comparative tasting and that's really
the key the key to developing your sense
of taste is to taste different coffees
side by side and this is the easiest way
to do that the coffee industry uses
company in a host of different ways a
buyer will cup coffees at origin when
looking for different Lots that they
might want to purchase an importer make
up coffees to make sure that what
arrived matches the pre shipped sample a
roaster make up coffees as part of their
quality control process to make sure
that they're roasting has been up to
scratch and a cafe make up coffees to
decide which coffees they want to put on
that menu now as I said there are a ton
of protocols and rituals around a
cupping in the industry we don't need to
replicate all of those we're gonna take
the most important bits to get to a nice
comparative cupping so in this video
I'll walk you through what you need in
terms of equipment and I think you'll
have most of it at home already I'll
walk you through the brewing process how
we're gonna brew coffee in a cup and
then I'll walk you through the basic
steps of how to cup several coffees
side-by-side this is going to be a
two-part video this is really the
practicalities of setting up a coffee
tasting at home what you need and how to
do it
the second part is going to be about
taste itself acidity sweetness exploring
those things diving in in much more
detail but this one this part is just
the practicalities of getting set up
[Music]
so the first thing you're going to need
is a kettle doesn't matter whether it's
a expensive kettle cheap kettle it
doesn't have to be a gooseneck kettle
just a regular domestic cattle is
completely fine make sure you fill this
with fresh cold water that's nice and
soft and is good tasting that's
important too next thing you're gonna
need is a weighing scale and you want to
be weighing both coffee and water with
it so something accurate 2.1 of a gram
is ideal and then you're gonna need a
coffee grinder now in an ideal world you
want a grinder this design to grind
through everything that you put in it
that doesn't really retain any coffee if
you have a grinder that does retain
coffee and you've got a hand grinder in
this situation a hand grinder might be
better and then you need some sort of
spoons now it can be something like a
coffee cupping spoon these are designed
for coffee cupping but that's not
actually that necessary it's perfectly
good to just use a dessert spoon or a
soup spoon and if you want to you could
use something really fancy but that's
not a requirement you just need
something of this kind of size and you
need a few of them and then we need
something to brew in now the industry
uses these they're called cupping bowls
it's nothing special it's nothing fancy
it's basically a sugar bowl it's a bowl
of about 250 mils in volume and that's
it you don't need to use something like
this but if you've got a bunch of these
or something like it
then that's great but you can use a
heatproof glass if you want to lots of
people like to use that but if you have
neither of those things then you can
brew in just a regular mug that's fine
in it can even be a pretty big mug but
you'll have to make some changes and
adapt your recipe a little bit as you go
but all you need is ideally five or six
of roughly the same size things and to
know how big they are and then the last
thing you need is some coffee now I have
to be clear here what you don't have to
do is this you don't have to go and buy
three full bags four five six full bags
of different coffees you can get away
with getting hold of say 20 grams of one
particular coffee and that's enough for
you to cup with it now the ideal number
I would say if you're starting out
maybe four or five I wouldn't try and
get a hold of ten different samples if
you're just getting used to kind of
cupping coffee side-by-side three is
enough two is enough actually to have
some interesting learning but I think
four or five is really the best just do
what you need to do to get four or five
little samples of coffee to taste go and
talk to your local coffee shop a lot of
them are pretty interested in talking to
you if you're enthusiastic about tasting
coffee and you only want a few grams to
do it with if you've got friends that
buy a good coffee trade with them
there's loads of different ways to do it
but all you need is a little bit of a
few different things that's really the
key so let's talk about how you're gonna
brew coffee for your coffee cupping and
if you've seen my french press technique
video a lot of this is going to be very
very very familiar
now there's two ideas behind the way
that we brew coffee in a cupping one
it's the way to brew coffee that has the
least human interaction right what we
don't want to do is brew coffee in a way
where our technique can impact taste
pour overs are great but how you brew a
pour-over can make it sweeter or more
acidic so at what point are you tasting
the pour over and at what point are you
tasting the coffee the other big idea
behind this whole thing is scale ability
to brew five pour overs would not only
be time consuming it would be really
annoying let alone trying to do 10 or 20
this is a way that we can brew several
coffees at the same time and its really
really really easy so what's the method
well it couldn't be simpler we're going
to grind some coffee kind of in the
finer end of medium fine and we're gonna
pour some hot water on it and let it
steep for about four minutes just like a
French press then there'll be a crust
that forms on the top and we'll stir it
after four minutes clean off anything
that's left floating and then we have a
bowl of coffee or a mug of coffee or a
glass of coffee ready to taste so the
key things here are recipe and ratio now
I'm going to recommend a ratio of 60
grams per liter
now usually for an infusion brew like
this I would recommend 75 grams a liter
but here brewing a little weaker
actually makes the tasting process a
little bit easier and then he got recipe
right so if you've got
at 240 250 ml bowl you don't want to use
240 250 miles of water you want to use
200 and that would be 12 grams of coffee
and when you brew that 12 grams of
coffee it'll bloom the phone will appear
and it will swell up in size what that
volume is typically three times to four
times the weight of the coffee a little
vary a little bit so that twelve grams
will easily take up 40 mils plus two 200
equals a very full ball in a 240 ml bowl
if you don't have five or six cups or
balls that are the same size from shape
that's okay you can use a whole bunch of
different sizes if you want to you got
two choices either pick the smallest
size in this case 10 grams to 160 and do
that in all the vessels or you could
scale up and down this is pretty much
twice the size so I'd do 20 grams to
about 330 grams of water choice is yours
whatever is easier for you now when it
comes time to weigh beans weigh them
into the vessel you're gonna be brewing
in later it's just an easy way to keep
them organized as you prep up I would
say you want to be accurate to ideally
your target weight give or take point
one of a gram so if I want 12 grams in
here its eleven point nine to twelve
point one is my kind of window once you
grind them weigh them again because you
might have lost a little bit of coffee
to that grinder in addition before you
grind your main tasting sample of a
particular coffee grind through just a
little handful of beans just to make
sure that there's nothing left from a
previous coffee in that grinder once
that's done once you've weighed out all
your beans hide the bags what you don't
want is kind of prompts or taste notes
lying around influencing you when you
taste so make a note of what's what get
rid of them for the sake of this tasting
I'm just gonna set up three different
coffees in three very different vessels
I'm going to need a couple of spare
empty vessels that I'll use for rinsing
and cleaning and I'll be good to go so
right now I'm gonna prep my three
samples and then I'm gonna boil a kettle
and when I come back we'll start the
tasting process the sponsor of today's
video is Skillshare Skillshare is an
online community with thousands of
classes covering dozens of different
proneural and creative skills I found
Skillshare very helpful for me in
improving the videos that I make for you
it's really helped with learning a whole
range of technical skills around video
creation but because I'm a Premium
Member I can access everything so I get
to feed my curiosity I've been learning
about ceramics and how ceramic mugs have
been made there's also a fantastic
coffee course on there from Mike
Phillips which I found incredibly useful
not just because of content but because
I love learning new ways to share and
present ideas skill shares incredibly
affordable it works out at ten dollars a
month for an annual subscription but if
you want to try it use the link in my
description down below it'll give you 60
days of Skillshare premium you can learn
a lot in 60 days our water is boiled and
we are ready to go now if you go to an
industry tasting you'll notice that
people are often already taking notes on
things like the smell of the dry grounds
there are going to be opportunities to
smell the coffee before we taste it and
that's interesting but if you're new to
coffee tasting this isn't a test if it's
if it's fun that's good if it's
interesting that's good but you don't
have to take copious notes you don't
have to find dozens of words to describe
things don't worry about it let's get
into brewing now I'm going to brew on
scales because I'm brewing three
different recipes here I've got 12 grams
15 and 20 and I'll need to brew the
right weights accordingly and it's
really hard to brew consistently without
scales even in the same bowls with the
same weight of coffee some coffees bloom
more than others so zero it out add your
hot water
lovely these are a little bit hot and
this is now perfect time to use the
mostly useless digital assistant in your
pocket in your phone set a timer for
four minutes okay at the end of four
minutes we're gonna get a spoon and
we're gonna use it to stop the brewing
process we're gonna gently stir the
crust on top three times and that's
gonna cause most of the grounds to sink
to the bottom
you're then getting at a second spoon to
scrape off anything on the top that's
still floating leaving a clean bowl
ready to taste now again in the industry
you'll notice people smelling really
intently when they're stirring that
crust it's an interesting aroma release
moment but if you're new to coffee
tasting don't worry about it too much
it's fun and it's interesting but but
don't obsess over these kind of details
the coffee industry has a bunch of other
priorities around a tasting than we do
at home so now these are nearly ready to
taste they're just a little bit too hot
I would recommend waiting at least 10
more minutes to let them cool down right
now they're not only so hot that they'd
burn your tongue but they're almost
impossible to taste when they're that
hot tasting gets easier the cooler a
coffee gets use this time to get rid of
that rinse water clean up the space and
get ready to cup go and grab that
notebook drink a glass of water and get
ready and so now finally it's time to
taste so the spoon the spoon is there so
that we can just have a little sample of
coffee and not have to pick up a mug of
hot liquid that's it it lets us do one
more thing which is slurp the coffee
now you'll see coffee professionals make
an astonishing array of bizarre noises
as they slurp this is mostly to cover
our insecurities and make us look like
we know what we're doing really you need
a little sample of liquid and just
gently you're really just trying to
gently spray the coffee into your mouth
it's just kind of turning up the volume
on the flavors that you're tasting give
you a spoon or little rinse between
bowls and
keep tasting compare and contrast that's
the game here make sure you keep tasting
from hot all the way down to kind of
room temperature the coffees are gonna
change so much in that time and they'll
just get easier and easier to taste so
like I said in a couple of weeks
there'll be another part of this which
is much more focused on exploring your
sense of taste through coffee this is
really just about the practical process
of setting up and doing a coffee cupping
at home and what I want you to do is to
go and try doing this set something up
give it a go taste compare contrast
don't overthink it just thinking about
what you'd like what you don't like when
you're familiar with the process then
we'll go deeper on your sense of taste
and developing your palate for coffee
how to set up a coffee cupping at home
now a coffee cupping is a specific sort
of coffee tasting used really commonly
in the coffee industry at all sections
of the value chain it really refers to a
specific way of brewing as well as
tasting and we're not going to try and
replicate all of it we're going to
cherry-pick the best bits so that we can
put on a really simple cupping and do
comparative tasting and that's really
the key the key to developing your sense
of taste is to taste different coffees
side by side and this is the easiest way
to do that the coffee industry uses
company in a host of different ways a
buyer will cup coffees at origin when
looking for different Lots that they
might want to purchase an importer make
up coffees to make sure that what
arrived matches the pre shipped sample a
roaster make up coffees as part of their
quality control process to make sure
that they're roasting has been up to
scratch and a cafe make up coffees to
decide which coffees they want to put on
that menu now as I said there are a ton
of protocols and rituals around a
cupping in the industry we don't need to
replicate all of those we're gonna take
the most important bits to get to a nice
comparative cupping so in this video
I'll walk you through what you need in
terms of equipment and I think you'll
have most of it at home already I'll
walk you through the brewing process how
we're gonna brew coffee in a cup and
then I'll walk you through the basic
steps of how to cup several coffees
side-by-side this is going to be a
two-part video this is really the
practicalities of setting up a coffee
tasting at home what you need and how to
do it
the second part is going to be about
taste itself acidity sweetness exploring
those things diving in in much more
detail but this one this part is just
the practicalities of getting set up
[Music]
so the first thing you're going to need
is a kettle doesn't matter whether it's
a expensive kettle cheap kettle it
doesn't have to be a gooseneck kettle
just a regular domestic cattle is
completely fine make sure you fill this
with fresh cold water that's nice and
soft and is good tasting that's
important too next thing you're gonna
need is a weighing scale and you want to
be weighing both coffee and water with
it so something accurate 2.1 of a gram
is ideal and then you're gonna need a
coffee grinder now in an ideal world you
want a grinder this design to grind
through everything that you put in it
that doesn't really retain any coffee if
you have a grinder that does retain
coffee and you've got a hand grinder in
this situation a hand grinder might be
better and then you need some sort of
spoons now it can be something like a
coffee cupping spoon these are designed
for coffee cupping but that's not
actually that necessary it's perfectly
good to just use a dessert spoon or a
soup spoon and if you want to you could
use something really fancy but that's
not a requirement you just need
something of this kind of size and you
need a few of them and then we need
something to brew in now the industry
uses these they're called cupping bowls
it's nothing special it's nothing fancy
it's basically a sugar bowl it's a bowl
of about 250 mils in volume and that's
it you don't need to use something like
this but if you've got a bunch of these
or something like it
then that's great but you can use a
heatproof glass if you want to lots of
people like to use that but if you have
neither of those things then you can
brew in just a regular mug that's fine
in it can even be a pretty big mug but
you'll have to make some changes and
adapt your recipe a little bit as you go
but all you need is ideally five or six
of roughly the same size things and to
know how big they are and then the last
thing you need is some coffee now I have
to be clear here what you don't have to
do is this you don't have to go and buy
three full bags four five six full bags
of different coffees you can get away
with getting hold of say 20 grams of one
particular coffee and that's enough for
you to cup with it now the ideal number
I would say if you're starting out
maybe four or five I wouldn't try and
get a hold of ten different samples if
you're just getting used to kind of
cupping coffee side-by-side three is
enough two is enough actually to have
some interesting learning but I think
four or five is really the best just do
what you need to do to get four or five
little samples of coffee to taste go and
talk to your local coffee shop a lot of
them are pretty interested in talking to
you if you're enthusiastic about tasting
coffee and you only want a few grams to
do it with if you've got friends that
buy a good coffee trade with them
there's loads of different ways to do it
but all you need is a little bit of a
few different things that's really the
key so let's talk about how you're gonna
brew coffee for your coffee cupping and
if you've seen my french press technique
video a lot of this is going to be very
very very familiar
now there's two ideas behind the way
that we brew coffee in a cupping one
it's the way to brew coffee that has the
least human interaction right what we
don't want to do is brew coffee in a way
where our technique can impact taste
pour overs are great but how you brew a
pour-over can make it sweeter or more
acidic so at what point are you tasting
the pour over and at what point are you
tasting the coffee the other big idea
behind this whole thing is scale ability
to brew five pour overs would not only
be time consuming it would be really
annoying let alone trying to do 10 or 20
this is a way that we can brew several
coffees at the same time and its really
really really easy so what's the method
well it couldn't be simpler we're going
to grind some coffee kind of in the
finer end of medium fine and we're gonna
pour some hot water on it and let it
steep for about four minutes just like a
French press then there'll be a crust
that forms on the top and we'll stir it
after four minutes clean off anything
that's left floating and then we have a
bowl of coffee or a mug of coffee or a
glass of coffee ready to taste so the
key things here are recipe and ratio now
I'm going to recommend a ratio of 60
grams per liter
now usually for an infusion brew like
this I would recommend 75 grams a liter
but here brewing a little weaker
actually makes the tasting process a
little bit easier and then he got recipe
right so if you've got
at 240 250 ml bowl you don't want to use
240 250 miles of water you want to use
200 and that would be 12 grams of coffee
and when you brew that 12 grams of
coffee it'll bloom the phone will appear
and it will swell up in size what that
volume is typically three times to four
times the weight of the coffee a little
vary a little bit so that twelve grams
will easily take up 40 mils plus two 200
equals a very full ball in a 240 ml bowl
if you don't have five or six cups or
balls that are the same size from shape
that's okay you can use a whole bunch of
different sizes if you want to you got
two choices either pick the smallest
size in this case 10 grams to 160 and do
that in all the vessels or you could
scale up and down this is pretty much
twice the size so I'd do 20 grams to
about 330 grams of water choice is yours
whatever is easier for you now when it
comes time to weigh beans weigh them
into the vessel you're gonna be brewing
in later it's just an easy way to keep
them organized as you prep up I would
say you want to be accurate to ideally
your target weight give or take point
one of a gram so if I want 12 grams in
here its eleven point nine to twelve
point one is my kind of window once you
grind them weigh them again because you
might have lost a little bit of coffee
to that grinder in addition before you
grind your main tasting sample of a
particular coffee grind through just a
little handful of beans just to make
sure that there's nothing left from a
previous coffee in that grinder once
that's done once you've weighed out all
your beans hide the bags what you don't
want is kind of prompts or taste notes
lying around influencing you when you
taste so make a note of what's what get
rid of them for the sake of this tasting
I'm just gonna set up three different
coffees in three very different vessels
I'm going to need a couple of spare
empty vessels that I'll use for rinsing
and cleaning and I'll be good to go so
right now I'm gonna prep my three
samples and then I'm gonna boil a kettle
and when I come back we'll start the
tasting process the sponsor of today's
video is Skillshare Skillshare is an
online community with thousands of
classes covering dozens of different
proneural and creative skills I found
Skillshare very helpful for me in
improving the videos that I make for you
it's really helped with learning a whole
range of technical skills around video
creation but because I'm a Premium
Member I can access everything so I get
to feed my curiosity I've been learning
about ceramics and how ceramic mugs have
been made there's also a fantastic
coffee course on there from Mike
Phillips which I found incredibly useful
not just because of content but because
I love learning new ways to share and
present ideas skill shares incredibly
affordable it works out at ten dollars a
month for an annual subscription but if
you want to try it use the link in my
description down below it'll give you 60
days of Skillshare premium you can learn
a lot in 60 days our water is boiled and
we are ready to go now if you go to an
industry tasting you'll notice that
people are often already taking notes on
things like the smell of the dry grounds
there are going to be opportunities to
smell the coffee before we taste it and
that's interesting but if you're new to
coffee tasting this isn't a test if it's
if it's fun that's good if it's
interesting that's good but you don't
have to take copious notes you don't
have to find dozens of words to describe
things don't worry about it let's get
into brewing now I'm going to brew on
scales because I'm brewing three
different recipes here I've got 12 grams
15 and 20 and I'll need to brew the
right weights accordingly and it's
really hard to brew consistently without
scales even in the same bowls with the
same weight of coffee some coffees bloom
more than others so zero it out add your
hot water
lovely these are a little bit hot and
this is now perfect time to use the
mostly useless digital assistant in your
pocket in your phone set a timer for
four minutes okay at the end of four
minutes we're gonna get a spoon and
we're gonna use it to stop the brewing
process we're gonna gently stir the
crust on top three times and that's
gonna cause most of the grounds to sink
to the bottom
you're then getting at a second spoon to
scrape off anything on the top that's
still floating leaving a clean bowl
ready to taste now again in the industry
you'll notice people smelling really
intently when they're stirring that
crust it's an interesting aroma release
moment but if you're new to coffee
tasting don't worry about it too much
it's fun and it's interesting but but
don't obsess over these kind of details
the coffee industry has a bunch of other
priorities around a tasting than we do
at home so now these are nearly ready to
taste they're just a little bit too hot
I would recommend waiting at least 10
more minutes to let them cool down right
now they're not only so hot that they'd
burn your tongue but they're almost
impossible to taste when they're that
hot tasting gets easier the cooler a
coffee gets use this time to get rid of
that rinse water clean up the space and
get ready to cup go and grab that
notebook drink a glass of water and get
ready and so now finally it's time to
taste so the spoon the spoon is there so
that we can just have a little sample of
coffee and not have to pick up a mug of
hot liquid that's it it lets us do one
more thing which is slurp the coffee
now you'll see coffee professionals make
an astonishing array of bizarre noises
as they slurp this is mostly to cover
our insecurities and make us look like
we know what we're doing really you need
a little sample of liquid and just
gently you're really just trying to
gently spray the coffee into your mouth
it's just kind of turning up the volume
on the flavors that you're tasting give
you a spoon or little rinse between
bowls and
keep tasting compare and contrast that's
the game here make sure you keep tasting
from hot all the way down to kind of
room temperature the coffees are gonna
change so much in that time and they'll
just get easier and easier to taste so
like I said in a couple of weeks
there'll be another part of this which
is much more focused on exploring your
sense of taste through coffee this is
really just about the practical process
of setting up and doing a coffee cupping
at home and what I want you to do is to
go and try doing this set something up
give it a go taste compare contrast
don't overthink it just thinking about
what you'd like what you don't like when
you're familiar with the process then
we'll go deeper on your sense of taste
and developing your palate for coffee