Before a company like Community Coffee purchases coffee from origin, they need to know what they’re buying. So, a pre-ship sample of the coffee is sent before (and after) purchase and that sample is taken to the “Cupping Lab.”
Much like a wine connoisseur would taste test a wine, “cupping” provides a consistent methodology of grading and evaluating a coffee’s quality; whether you’re in Brazil, Sumatra, or Baton Rouge, everyone who “cups” does it the same.
At the Community Coffee factory in Port Allen, LA, cupping is Carl Leonard’s territory. Leonard’s the Vice President of Green Coffee and Tea Department. He showed me the upstairs lab at their factory and how "cupping" is properly done.
200 grams of one pre-ship sample goes into one chamber of a rotating 400 degree test roaster. There are four chambers and Leonard is using all of them, one for each green coffee sample: a Sumatran, Brazilian, Columbian, and one from New Guinea.
After roughly five minutes or so the beans begin to crackle and pop in the rotating oven, which to Leonard indicates they’re done. He dumps them out into a sifting pan to briefly cool and then grinds them. Grinding releases trapped CO2 gas from the cellular structures of the bean which built up during roasting - there’s a reason coffee packages in the store have a ventilation tab.
7 grams of the ground coffee is then measured out into five, 6 oz. custard cups. Twenty custard cups circle the edge of a spin-top table in the center of the lab, giving each bean its own station.
Once all of the coffee samples are roasted, ground, and in their cups on the table, Leonard pours in 6 ounces of 195 degree water into each. As he pours, coffee rushes to the top and volatile oils start rapidly evaporating. Immediately you can smell the aroma.
Leonard lets the coffee steep in hot water for four minutes to allow for maximum extraction. During the four minutes the coffee forms a crust at the top, and when the time is up, he breaks the crust with a stainless steel spoon. He stirs each cup three times and smells the back of the spoon. Using terms like “floral” and “earthy” Leonard grades the aroma. He then methodically removes the grounds from each cup with the spoon to prepare for the next stage: tasting.
With a vacuum like force, Leonard loudly slurps a spoonful from one cup, spits into a waste cup, and moves to the next by spinning the table.
After slurping all five cups, Leonard lets the taste linger in his mouth, noting certain flavors (or “notes”) that are hitting his pallet. He’s looking for two things: body and acidity.
He compares the body of a coffee to the richness or weight of milk, e.g., skim vs. whole. The thinner and more watery the taste is, the lower the body. The acidity, on the other hand, determines the “brightness” of a coffee.
“Without acidity,” Leonard says, “the coffee will be dull and flat. Most morning coffees are brighter, which gives you that perky taste.”
Altitude is a determining factor for both body and acidity, Leonard tells me. The lower the altitude a bean is grown, the lower the acidity will be; and, the lower the acidity is the fuller the body will be. High mountains in South America produce good acidity, for example, while the lower fields of Brazil have great body.
Knowing what category the bean falls into allows them to create blends. For example, they can mix a full body coffee from New Guinea with a bright, high acidic coffee from Columbia to produce a blend that creates a well-rounded taste.
There’s a reason coffee is grown in only certain parts of the world, Leonard says, because growing it is very challenging. Weather, temperature and altitude play a big factor, but every farmer also knows about Leaf Rust, borer beetles, and ground mold; things that can make or break a field’s coffee bean output and affect business. For example, Leonard says if some beans fall to the ground after being picked and are then placed back into the bag, his entire purchase could be covered in mold by the time it arrives at the plant.
Part of Leonard’s job as green coffee buyer is to make sure that the beans he’s cupping (the beans that will be roasted by the tons inside the factory) not only taste good but are arriving at their peak stage for roasting. That stage, he tells me, is within a window of one to three months. A coffee bean’s chlorophyll content is too high to be roasted before thirty days, Leonard explains, and after ninety days it’s too old. This is why “cupping” a post-ship sample in the lab after purchase is important: to determine age of the bean, and whether or not it’s still in good condition.
The end results of cupping, he says, will confirm or cancel a very expensive purchase; and it will also confirm or cancel a newly created coffee blend.
A lot goes into making sure your cup of joe in the morning not only tastes good but is also there for you to buy. The next time someone asks you where that coffee came from, you can tell them it’s “lab tested”.