Coffee.si - Everything about coffee

To brew a perfect cup of coffee is never an easy task, the quality of the machines that are used, the grinder, the roast, the skill of the baristas and of course, the quality of the coffee beans. For determining the kind of beans, its origins, consistency and everything that goes with a good cup of coffee, the cuppers or coffee tasters take center stage.

To qualify as a coffee taster, the candidate must pass through a series of tests. A certified coffee taster means that the candidate has passed several challenging sensory tests. Some of the criteria that are important are for the candidate to be able to distinguish by smell and by taste the region where the coffee brew is produced, and the grade and quality of the coffee based on established criteria.

The ability to distinguish coffee grades is very important to a cupper as this determines not only the quality of coffee but the related cost with high quality coffee as well. Evaluating a quality grade uses a 100 point scale where the lower the quality point that a coffee is evaluated, the cheaper the coffee beans become from a buyer’s point of view.

Green grading is also another area that a coffee taster must excel. Through green grading, candidates have to sort through several grams of unroasted beans validating it for cleanliness and defects.

Cupping is also one of the criteria that have to be passed. With cupping, tasters have to measure the consistency of several cups for its body, flavor and aroma and be able to grade it. To pass, a certain consistency level has to be achieved. A mean average is established and scores that are far from the mean will not be certified and licensed.

On top of this, there are approximately 800 different components that give flavor to a coffee. The coffee taster is required to identify many variables that go with identifying the components. Most coffee drinkers do not bother with this, what is important to them is whether they agree with the taste of the coffee or not. The team of certified professional coffee tasters takes care of that.