What happens at a cupping.
Before a coffee goes into a bag, someone has tasted it. At our roastery on Boxhagener Straße 82 in Berlin-Friedrichshain, that tasting is called a cupping. It is the method coffee professionals use around the world to taste coffees side by side, under the same conditions.
Why roasters cup.
A cupping keeps the brewing simple, so the coffee itself stands out. There is no filter paper, no espresso machine and no recipe to adjust: only ground coffee and hot water in a cup. Every sample is prepared the same way, so the differences you taste come from the coffee.
New green coffees reach us as samples. We roast them on our sample roasters and cup them before we decide which coffees to buy. Once a coffee is in our range, we taste every roast before it goes into a bag.
The table.
A cupping table holds a row of cups, each with the same amount of freshly ground coffee. The Specialty Coffee Association's protocol fixes the ratio: 8.25 grams of coffee for every 150 millilitres of water, at around 93 °C. That way, every cup can be compared fairly.
Step by step.
Fragrance. First, smell the dry grounds. This is the first impression of the coffee.
Aroma. Hot water is poured over the grounds, and a crust forms on top. After three to five minutes, the crust is broken with a spoon, and the aroma rises from the cup.
Skim. The foam and grounds left on the surface are lifted off, so the coffee is clear to taste.
Taste. Once the coffee has cooled a little, each cup is tasted from a round spoon, with a quick, loud slurp. Slurping spreads the coffee across your palate and carries its aroma to your nose. Tasters note flavour, acidity, sweetness, body and aftertaste, then taste again as the coffee cools, because a coffee changes with temperature. Between cups, the spoon is rinsed in clean water.
What a cupping is not.
A cupping is not a ranking of good and bad. Two people at the same table can prefer different cups. The SCA's Coffee Value Assessment, which we use for formal assessments, separates what a taster perceives, such as aroma, flavour and acidity, from how they judge its quality.
Join a cupping evening.
On the first Thursday of every month, we open the lab of our roastery for a cupping evening, from 18:30 to 19:45. Our team guides you through the table: smell the dry and wet grounds, break the crust, taste and compare. In English and German, with 8 places. No prior knowledge needed.
The first evening is on Thursday, 3 December 2026.
