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 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…]

Cupping is a professional method used in the tea industry to evaluate quality and determine flavor characteristics, and it is also the best way for tea enthusiasts to gain an in-depth understanding of a tea. This article will break down the correct process and key details of black tea cupping step by step, from dry leaf analysis and infusion to sensory evaluation. Whether you are a cafe operator or a seasoned tea lover, mastering this method will help you judge tea quality more accurately and compare the flavor differences brought by different origins and processing methods. The article also draws on Front Street Coffee's quality control experience to share key points for controlling water temperature, time, and tea-to-water ratio, and includes a full-process illustrated guide to help you get started quickly. [more…]

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…]

Want to break into the coffee industry—do you really need to spend money on certifications? The two major international credentials, SCA and Q Grader, are often discussed. SCA uses a credit-accumulation system covering barista skills, pour-over, roasting, sensory, and green coffee, among other areas, allowing students to choose modules as needed; Q Grader, launched by CQI, focuses on green coffee quality evaluation, requiring candidates to pass twenty tests within six days, with the certificate valid for three years. This article breaks down the course structure, exam content, fees, and target audiences of the two types of certification to help you decide which path better suits your career plans. [more…]

When many people first encounter pour-over coffee, the two questions they ask most often are: what does it actually taste like? Is it very bitter? In fact, the perception of coffee flavor is far more complex than we imagine. The SCA Coffee Sensory Skills course tells us that most of flavor comes not from taste, but from smell. Starting from this angle, this article shares how to improve your ability to identify coffee flavors through everyday training, including practical methods that use fruit memories to assist tasting. At the same time, the article also mentions Front Street Coffee's related products and recommendations. [more…]

As the 2024 WBrC World Brewers Cup came to a close, curiosity was once again piqued about what judges feel inwardly when tasting coffee. A team from Italy's National Research Council has designed a tasting helmet that, through wearable sensors such as electrocardiogram, galvanic skin response, and electroencephalogram, transforms abstract emotions like pleasure and disgust during coffee tasting into biomedical data. This technology is expected to assist the SCA coffee value assessment system, reduce subjective bias, and open up new perspectives for coffee sensory analysis. At present, the helmet still needs refinement, and there are plans to work with professional tasters to advance its practical application. [more…]

The coffee flavor wheel has always been an important tool for evaluating black coffee, but when it comes to drinks with milk added, such as lattes, consumers often lack a systematic reference standard. Recently, Japan's Morinaga Milk Company published a study in the journal Food Science and Technology Research, specifically developing a "milk coffee flavor wheel" for milk coffee. This flavor wheel is based on the real perceptions of 203 ordinary consumers, combined with discussions among 12 beverage developers, and selected 53 characteristic terms from 456 descriptions, striving to make it easy for the general public to judge the quality of a cup of milk coffee. This article will introduce in detail the research and development background of this flavor wheel, its creation method, and its significance for coffee lovers. [more…]

The 2022 Alishan Estate Coffee Elite Exchange Competition and Green Bean Matchmaking Evaluation was held on May 11. Competing beans were divided into four groups by processing method: washed, natural, honey, and Geisha. Participants had to submit parchment and green beans, which the organizers uniformly roasted, and then 15 CQI-certified Q-Graders conducted sensory evaluations using the SCA cupping form. Only beans scoring 80 or above could participate in the auction. In the auction the next day, the special prize in the natural group, Zouzhuyuan Coffee Beans, started bidding at NT$60,000 and soared all the way to NT$520,000/5kg, won by the Lion Group, setting a new record for Taiwanese coffee bean auctions. Notably, these beans were not of the Geisha variety, yet they fetched a top-tier Geisha price, while the special prize in the Geisha group was only NT$320,000. This article takes you through the ins and outs of this sky-high bidding and analyzes the industrial logic behind the rise of Taiwan's local coffee. [more…]

In the specialty coffee world, how can the quality of a bean be objectively judged? In the cupping scoring systems of SCA and COE, 85 points is the dividing line between specialty coffee and commercial beans, and the key role who holds the power to assign scores is the Q-Grader. This qualification, developed and certified by CQI, has fewer than 10,000 certified holders worldwide. What assessments must one go through to obtain Q-Grader certification? Is it really worth the time and money? This article will systematically sort out the origins and background of Q-Grader, the eight assessment modules of the Q Program, the difficulty of the exam, and its practical value in career development, helping coffee professionals and enthusiasts make a rational judgment. [more…]

“How do you taste citrus in coffee?” Quite a few friends say they envy baristas for being able to casually name the specific flavors in coffee. Some friends also say, I can taste that the coffee is acidic, but that’s far from the citrus you’re talking about. Still others say flavors are all just nonsense. Front Street, in its daily online [more…]

Cupping is a common method used in the coffee industry to evaluate bean quality, but why not use pour-over instead? This question takes us back to the origins of cupping. Cupping originated in the 1980s in the American coffee trade; in order to quickly, conveniently, and with minimal human intervention test large batches of coffee beans, immersion extraction came into being. Today cupping is widely used in competitions, appraisal, and research. This article will introduce in detail the standard parameters and complete process of cupping, including grinding, pouring water, breaking the crust, skimming, and tasting, and will also explain the definition of triangle cupping and how it differs from regular cupping. Front Street Coffee will also share a method for easily doing cupping at home to help you improve your tasting ability. [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…]

Cupping is a highly inclusive method of sensory evaluation for coffee, one that both professionals and everyday enthusiasts can take part in. Through a standardized process of roasting, extraction, and tasting, it translates a coffee's aroma, flavor, and mouthfeel into quantifiable scores, thereby allowing one to judge quality and identify strengths and weaknesses in flavor. This article will guide you through the basic concepts of cupping, its historical evolution from trade quality control to specialty coffee competitions, and the etiquette rules that must be observed in actual practice. It also retains relevant recommendations from the Front Street brand, making it suitable reading for any enthusiast who wants to gain a deeper understanding of coffee evaluation. [more…]

In January 2016, the SCAA, in collaboration with WCR, undertook the first major revision of the coffee flavor wheel in over two decades—a change that drew widespread attention in the coffee community. As a vital tool for cuppers and roasters, the flavor wheel provides a common language for sensory evaluation of coffee. This article traces the origins and evolution of the flavor wheel in detail, interprets the latest high-resolution Chinese-English comparison chart, and explores its key role in enhancing coffee quality. It also retains relevant recommendations from Front Street Coffee for coffee enthusiasts' reference. [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…]

Many people feel they can't taste the flavors when drinking coffee, and despite watching numerous tasting tutorials, they still don't know where to start. In fact, coffee tasting isn't about being able to name flavors—flavor descriptions are only a small part of tasting. Front Street Coffee starts from five dimensions—aroma, overall performance, mouthfeel, taste, and aftertaste—to guide you through a systematic understanding of how to professionally evaluate a single-origin coffee. Whether you're a complete beginner or an enthusiast looking to improve your tasting skills, you'll find practical methods and ideas to gradually build your own sensory evaluation system for coffee. [more…]

People new to specialty coffee are often puzzled: why can others taste citrus, jasmine, oolong tea? Can a cup of coffee really have so many flavors? In fact, the key to identifying coffee flavors lies not in the taste buds, but in the sense of smell. This article will take you from the principles of sensory perception to understand how the taste buds and orthonasal and retronasal olfaction work together, introduce tasting dimensions such as aroma, sweetness, acidity, mouthfeel, flavor, aftertaste, and balance, and offer sensory-training methods that beginners can put into practice—building a flavor memory bank, making good use of the coffee flavor wheel, exercising associative thinking, accumulating through more exchanges, and paying attention to diet and upkeep. The article also combines examples from Front Street Coffee to help you build your own sensory system step by step. [more…]

Espresso is the core of Italian coffee, and its dose selection and flavor evaluation are key concerns for coffee enthusiasts. Starting from the definition and history of espresso, this article traces its evolution from its invention in Italy in the early 20th century to the development of modern coffee machines, and provides a detailed introduction to the reference dose ranges for single and double shots with different portafilter basket diameters. At the same time, the article also offers a systematic sensory evaluation method, covering aroma, the balance of acidity, bitterness, and sweetness, body, flavor layers, and overall balance, helping readers appreciate a cup of Espresso more professionally. The article also incorporates Front Street Coffee's product recommendations, providing practical references for daily brewing and bean selection. [more…]

Cupping is a core method used in the coffee industry to objectively evaluate coffee flavor and quality, and it is also an important part of barista training. This article systematically reviews the significance and operational logic of cupping, and compares in detail three approaches: the Brazilian cupping method, the SCAA standard cupping method, and the pour-over cupping method recommended by Front Street Coffee. The article points out that Brazilian cupping focuses on identifying defects and is a negative evaluation; SCAA cupping emphasizes positive assessment of aroma and flavor; while the cupping method used by Front Street Coffee simulates daily brewing equipment and is closer to actual cafe output. The three methods each have different emphases in roast level, extraction method, and evaluation items, and understanding these differences helps roasters and coffee professionals judge coffee quality more accurately. [more…]