What are Cupping Notes?


Cupping notes are a set of standardized descriptors used to create a sensory-rich picture of the coffee during a formal cupping process. A coffee cupping, or coffee tasting, is similar to a wine tasting. It’s a professional practice of observing the tastes and aromas of a coffee to determine how it cups. Cupping involves smelling the coffee (smell is very closely linked to taste), moving it around in the mouth to get a feel for its body (or texture), and slurping the coffee to aerate the brew. All of these practices help you to determine the characteristics of the coffee. Some of these different characteristics are: the aroma, body, and flavor/taste.



Beginning from when you grind a coffee, the aroma is a very important aspect of the coffee tasting experience. The aroma of something has a great impact on what you taste. Aromatics of coffee can be associated with an endless amount of other things. Fruity, floral, sweet, spicy, it is important to take notice of what aroma a coffee presents.




The Body of a coffee describes the weight and texture of the coffee. Some coffees have a viscous, heavy body while others are light or watery. This texture affects the way the other flavors are experienced.



The flavor, or taste, of coffee can vary depending a variety of factors such as the way the coffee was grown, processed, roasted, or how it was brewed. Taste is closely associated with aroma, but must be evaluated separately. While the aroma is restricted to being dependent on factors outside of the prepare-rs hands, the taste is dependent on those factors as well as on the quality of the preparation. A coffee can exhibit a sour or excessively bitter taste because of poor preparation. A summary of the tastes and aromas, found during the cupping is what is put on the coffee bags as the cupping notes. These kinds of tastes are known as hints and notes. These tastes, however, are not to be confused with flavored coffee. Flavored coffee is when flavors such as hazelnut or vanilla are added to a batch of coffee after it has been roasted. The flavors, or cupping notes, of a coffee come from the actual bean at the origin, how it is roasted, and how it is prepared.



Flavor Wheel

The Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel is a resource used in the coffee industry created by the Specialty Coffee Association in collaboration with World Coffee Research, it is “the largest and most collaborative piece of research on coffee flavor ever completed, inspiring a new set of vocabulary for industry professionals.”

Click here for an interactive flavor-wheel:https://notbadcoffee.com/flavor-wheel-en/