an introduction to coffee cupping.

In coffee circles ‘cupping’ is the means for determining a coffee’s quality and inherent characteristics. For our cupping session, we were provided 6 different coffees from freshly roasted and grounded beans, each in its own cup. All of us attending then smelled each of the coffees and noted the characteristics of each one.

Next, each cup was filled with 200-degree water.

After 4 minutes…

The foam was then removed from the coffee.

Now everything is ready.

We then are given spoons and a paper cup.

We take a spoonful of coffee and slurp it without swallowing, trying to gather all the aroma and particular flavor nuances of each. We then can either swallow the coffee or spit it out in our paper cup. We take the spoon and rinse it in provided cups of clean water and proceed to the next coffee.

We are done with the cupping. Now we discuss our experience with each coffee. Did we notice the strawberry in one or the citrus in another? Our host for the event was one of the owners of Olympia Coffee Roasting Company, Oliver Stormshak. He gave us a history lesson on coffee, and how coffee is produced, from the small farmer to our cupping that morning.

https://www.experienceolympia.com/event/olympia-coffee-roasters-friday-cupping/1822/

https://www.olympiacoffee.com/pages/our-story

 

These images were shot with the Nikomat EL and Kodak Tmax P3200 film, developed in HC-110 for 10 minutes, 30 seconds @20C. The lens used was the Nikkor-S-Auto 50mm 1:1.4 Lens.