What makes a coffee good?
- A coffee you personally enjoy?
- One that scores 80 or above?
- Or simply coffee grown in your own community?
A short video course on how professionals describe, assess, and understand coffee, using the SCA Coffee Value Assessment. From green bean to final score, in six parts.
Three ways to look at a coffee
Describe first. Judge second.
The SCA Coffee Value Assessment, adopted in 2024, replaced the 2004 cupping form. One of its biggest changes is separating what is in the coffee from how much we like it.
Physical
What does the green bean tell us?
Moisture, density, color, size, and defects, measured before the coffee is ever roasted.
Module 1
Descriptive
What is in the coffee?
Fragrance, aroma, flavor, and acidity, described without deciding whether they are good or bad.
Modules 2, 3 & 4
Affective
What is my impression of its quality?
How the coffee fits our preferences, and the preferences of a particular market.
Module 5
The course
Six short lessons, in cupping order.
The cupping recipe
Same conditions, every cup.
Temperature, ratio, and time all change what reaches the cup. Holding them steady is what lets us compare coffees fairly.
Lets fresh roast gases dissipate. Cupping tomorrow means roasting today.
The grind distribution, with each sample ground separately.
Roughly a 1:18 ratio for each cup.
Temperature affects extraction, so it stays fixed.
Contact time is the third control on extraction.
One cup can hide an isolated problem. Five show the whole lot.
How a score is built
Two scales, two different questions.
Intensity tells us how much of something is in the cup. Liking tells us how we feel about it. They are recorded separately, on purpose.
Intensity, 1–15
How strong is it?
High intensity does not automatically mean better coffee. Descriptors are chosen with CATA, Check-All-That-Apply, from an established vocabulary.
Liking, 1–9
What is my impression of its quality?
Rated for fragrance/aroma, flavor/aftertaste, acidity, sweetness, mouthfeel, and overall impression.
When one of the five cups differs from the others.
Sensory defects such as moldy, potato, or phenolic.
A score below 80 is not an insult to the farmer. It is information about where the coffee fits.
The full guide
Prefer to watch it all at once?
The complete 16-minute walkthrough. Jump to any chapter below.
The most important thing is not the score. It is understanding the coffee.
Every lot we offer is cupped before it moves forward, and every sample ships with its cupping scores and processing notes.