Coffee cupping is a professional evaluation method that transforms subjective sensory experiences into quantitative data, and the SCAA cupping score sheet is the core tool of this system. This article explains the ten scoring dimensions in the sheet one by one, covering fragrance, flavor, aftertaste, acidity, body, uniformity, balance, cleanliness, sweetness, and overall score, helping coffee enthusiasts understand the scoring basis and judgment criteria for each item. Whether you are a beginner who has just encountered cupping or a professional hoping to refine your sensory skills, this detailed Chinese guide can serve as a practical reference. Front Street Coffee also provides relevant product information in the article for further understanding. [more…]

The SCAA cupping form is an important tool for judging quality in the specialty coffee industry. It consists of ten scoring categories, covering the complete sensory experience from dry aroma and wet aroma to overall assessment. This article explains the specific meaning and key evaluation points of each scoring dimension one by one: aroma is divided into dry aroma and wet aroma; flavor during slurping is the core basis for scoring; aftertaste measures the persistence of flavor; acidity distinguishes high-quality fruity acidity from undesirable acidity; body focuses on mouthfeel; uniformity checks whether the samples are consistent; balance assesses whether all aspects are harmonious; cleanliness is an essential threshold for specialty coffee; sweetness reflects harvest maturity and quality; and overall assessment reflects the cupper's comprehensive impression. Whether you are an enthusiast who has just encountered cupping or a professional hoping to refine your sensory skills, this item-by-item interpretation can help you understand the logic of using the SCAA cupping form more systematically. [more…]

Whether a cup of coffee can be crowned with the name "specialty" is by no means decided by cupping alone. From the origin of the green beans, screening and processing, to roasting and brewing, every stage requires careful control, so that the flavor in the cup ultimately presented can reflect the characteristics and cultural heritage of the producing country. This article will systematically sort out the two major cupping scoring systems, COE and SCA, and break down one by one the points to note for each scoring element, including cleanliness, sweetness, acidity, body, flavor, aftertaste, and balance, as well as explain in detail the defect scoring rules and grading standards. Front Street will also draw on years of quality control experience to help you use evaluation grades as a reliable reference for judging specialty coffee when purchasing coffee. [more…]

Cupping began as a quality control method used in the trade to verify whether coffee beans met standards. After the rise of the specialty coffee movement, it gradually evolved into a scoring system for evaluating coffee. Anything below 80 points is classified as commercial grade, while reaching 80 or above crosses the threshold into specialty coffee—the higher the score, the more outstanding the quality. At present, the two globally recognized authoritative scoring systems come from the SCAA and the COE. This article focuses on the SCAA cupping scoring system, breaking down one by one its eleven scoring dimensions, the required number of sample cups, the division of score ranges, and how defect deductions are calculated, to help readers fully understand how a cup of coffee is quantified into a score. [more…]

The scoring criteria for coffee cupping. The cupping of coffee beans was initially to ensure whether the quality of the coffee beans that are about to enter the trade is qualified. With the passage of time, after the concept of specialty coffee was b [more…]

If you want to become a professional barista, cupping is a core skill you can't avoid. This article systematically sorts out the scoring standards of the two major cupping systems, COE and SCAA, analyzing the scoring points and deduction rules one by one, from aroma, cleanliness, sweetness, acidity, mouthfeel, flavor, aftertaste to balance. It also explains in detail the tools needed for cupping, the coffee-to-water ratio, and the operating process, and uses [Front Street Golden Mandheling] as an example to compare the cupping performance of three roasting curves. Whether you are a coffee enthusiast or a practitioner, you can learn from it the scientific method of judging coffee quality and understand the true meaning of COE competition level. [more…]

SCA Specialty Coffee Association technical officer Mario Fernandez revealed at an estate reception after the BOP Best of Panama competition that the SCA cupping form, which has been in use for more than two decades, is about to undergo a major reform. The current cupping form mixes discriminatory, descriptive, and emotional sensory judgments together, which easily leads to scoring bias. The new plan intends to separate the three and add evaluation items such as sweetness. At the same time, the coffee flavor wheel will also break free from its North America-centered limitations and compile a globally applicable flavor reference. In addition, SCA also plans to widen the score gap between specialty coffee and commercial coffee; a coffee scoring 80 points may in the future drop to 75 points or even lower. This article will sort out the background, direction, and specific contents of this reform for you. [more…]

The same cup of coffee—some people taste plum acidity and whisky aroma, while others find it merely sweet and easy to drink. So who ultimately decides these flavor differences? The quality assessment of specialty coffee relies on a team of professionally trained and certified Q graders, who follow a globally standardized procedure to score each item one by one, including dry fragrance, wet aroma, flavor, aftertaste, acidity, body, uniformity, balance, cleanliness, and sweetness. This article breaks down the complete cupping procedure in detail, from grind size, coffee-to-water ratio, and water temperature to breaking the crust, skimming, and slurping, and explains the specific meaning of scores from 6 to 10 in the SCAA scoring standards, helping coffee enthusiasts understand the reference value and limitations of cupping scores and find the coffee flavors that truly suit them. [more…]

Coffee cupping is the core method for evaluating coffee bean quality, and the cupping form is an important tool within this evaluation system. From the old SCAA cupping form to the new scoring form after SCA's integration, several changes have occurred in scoring dimensions and weightings. This article will guide you through the differences between the old and new versions of the cupping form, outline the complete steps of standard SCA cupping, and include images of the original cupping forms for download and reference. Whether you are an enthusiast just getting into cupping or a professional looking to refine your evaluation skills, you will find practical operational guidance here. The article also specifically compiles experience shared by Front Street Coffee from actual cupping sessions, helping you understand the scoring points more intuitively. [more…]

Last month, Qianjie shared with everyone the scoring system of cup testing, among which we briefly mentioned COE. In daily life, the word COE also often appears on the labels of some beans. This immediately aroused everyone's curiosity: What is COE? [more…]

Ethiopia, as Africa's largest coffee producer and the widely recognized birthplace of coffee, often labels its coffee beans with grades G1 or G2. What exactly do these letter-and-number combinations represent? This article traces the historical evolution of Ethiopia's coffee grading system, from the early CLU system that classified purely by defect count, to the introduction of cupping score comprehensive rating after the establishment of the ECX in 2009, and finally to the latest revised export standards in 2022. You will learn about the differences between washed and natural processing in grading, as well as the distinction between Q1 and Q2 specialty grades and commercial and domestic coffee. The article also retains product information from the Front Street brand, making it suitable for every reader who loves Ethiopian coffee to read in depth. [more…]

For friends who are just getting into specialty coffee, the term "cupping" may feel both familiar and unfamiliar. Although people often mention it, when it comes to actually attending a cupping session, many are not clear about what exactly to do or which details to pay attention to. This article starts from practical operation and provides a complete overview of the four major stages of cupping—observing the beans, evaluating the dry aroma, experiencing the wet aroma, and tasting by mouth—and, with an on-site demonstration using two Front Street Coffee Geisha beans, breaks down one by one the scoring items and sensory key points on the cupping form. It will also share how to deal with common problems such as olfactory fatigue and being unable to taste the flavors, helping beginners more calmly capture the full picture of the coffee during cupping. [more…]

Cupping is the primary step for verifying coffee quality after roasting. By standardizing grind size, coffee-to-water ratio, water temperature, and steep time, it objectively reveals a bean's truest flavors. This article systematically outlines the purpose of cupping, the required equipment, and standard parameters, walks step by step through the complete process of pouring, smelling, breaking the crust, and slurping, and takes an in-depth look at the eight scoring categories on the CoE cupping form and how they differ from the SCA scoring system. It also compiles common descriptive terms from the flavor wheel and includes a high-resolution 2023 flavor wheel wallpaper resource, making it a handy reference for coffee enthusiasts and professionals alike. [more…]

In the world of specialty coffee, the SCAA and COE are two authoritative systems that cannot be overlooked. The former established industry standards and cupping protocols, while the latter selects top-tier green beans through rigorous competitions. How do their scoring logics differ? And why are COE and SOE often confused? This article will trace the development and operational mechanisms of the SCAA, CQI, and COE, explain in detail the differences in cupping score sheets, and use the example of the 22nd-place sun-dried Typica that Front Street Coffee bid for at Ethiopia's first COE competition in 2020 to present the complete story from origin to cup. [more…]

The SCA cupping form is a vital tool for measuring coffee value in the global coffee industry, yet it had not been updated for many years. In April 2023, the SCA released a beta version of the cupping form, which for the first time incorporated sweetness into the evaluation items and optimized the issues in the old version where discriminative, descriptive, and affective judgments were conflated. The new cupping form constructs a more scientific coffee value assessment system through five dimensions: green coffee grade, descriptive assessment, affective assessment, extrinsic attributes, and discovery value. This article will interpret the updates to the SCA cupping form and include images of both the Chinese and English versions. Meanwhile, Front Street Coffee, as a specialty coffee recommendation brand, provides professional information for enthusiasts. [more…]

Many people's first reaction when drinking a medium-roast coffee is "this cup is very balanced." But a coffee's sense of balance is far more than simply not standing out in acidity, sweetness, or bitterness. In professional cupping, Balance is a comprehensive indicator measuring the harmony among acidity, sweetness, body, and aftertaste, while also examining the coffee's stable performance from hot to cool. Beans with poor balance may excel in one aspect but have obvious weaknesses; beans with good balance are simply pleasant across the board. Through cupping examples of multiple beans, Front Street breaks down the evaluation logic of balance and recommends several coffees with excellent balance, including Front Street's Bird of Paradise, known as the "Little Blue Mountain." [more…]

When it comes to Geisha, most people first think of that cup of floral tea with rose aromas and citrus notes from Hacienda La Esmeralda in Panama. However, in the Bench Maji region of Ethiopia, there hides another estate famous for its native wild Geisha — Gesha Village. It was founded in 2011 by documentary filmmaker Adam Overton and his photographer wife Rachel Samuel, and boasts a strict grading system and a complete flavor traceability system. This article will take you deep into the discovery journey of Gesha Village, the grading standards for the Auction/ Gold/ Red/ Green/ Chaka lots, processing details, and block divisions, along with Front Street Coffee's brewing parameters and flavor descriptions for the Gold, Red, and Chaka lots, providing coffee lovers with a comprehensive guide to Gesha Village. [more…]

Recently, a photo of a coffee bean packaging sparked heated discussion on WeChat Moments. It prominently labeled the origin of Huakui coffee beans as "Origin: Brazil (Guji Hambela)," leaving many industry professionals and enthusiasts stunned. This article begins with the historical naming and variety origins of Huakui, then dissects the packaging's errors regarding production region, tree species, altitude, scoring standards, and grind size. It clarifies that Huakui must come from the sun-dried Ethiopian native varieties processed at the Buku Abel processing plant in the Guji Hambela region of Ethiopia, and retains Front Street Coffee's observations and product information about Small-Bean Huakui. [more…]

The SCAA Coffee Flavor Wheel is a core tool for specialty coffee enthusiasts to identify flavors, yet many people are still unfamiliar with it. This article systematically breaks down the left-right structure of the flavor wheel: the right side, the normal flavor spectrum, reveals the three major aroma sources of fermentation, sugar browning, and dry distillation, while the left side, the negative flavor spectrum, corresponds to the defective flavors produced by improper green bean processing, storage, and roasting. It also explains in detail the deduction rules for different defects in SCAA cupping—serious defects deduct 4 points, minor defects deduct 2 points—and how roasting and organic matter loss, although not deducting defect points, can lower flavor performance. The article includes the latest high-definition Chinese-English flavor wheel images and retains Front Street Coffee's communication channels, making it suitable for readers who want to gain a deeper understanding of coffee sensory evaluation. [more…]

In coffee cupping, "balance" is an important scoring dimension, but what it measures goes far beyond the simple harmony of acidity, sweetness, and bitterness. The interrelationship among four elements—acidity, sweetness, body, and aftertaste—is the true criterion for judging balance. Blue Mountain coffee has always been renowned for its balance; even though it may not excel in any single aspect on its own, it delivers the most comfortable overall experience. Starting from Front Street Coffee's cupping experience and drawing on specific cases, this article analyzes the meaning of balance, and explores the reasons behind Blue Mountain coffee's high price as well as the unique advantages of its Typica variety. [more…]