What Is a Coffee Cupping Score? How Coffee Quality Is Measured

Quick answer: a cupping score is a number out of 100 that trained tasters give a coffee after tasting it under tightly controlled conditions. Anything at 80 or above counts as specialty grade.

What is cupping?

Cupping is how professionals taste coffee side by side. The coffee is brewed the same way every time, with the same grind, water temperature, ratio and steeping time, so that what's left to judge is the coffee itself. Tasters slurp it from a spoon to spread it across the palate and score what they find.

The point is consistency. A coffee scored in Brazil should mean roughly the same as one scored in London, because everyone follows the same method and the same scale.

What gets scored

Most cupping follows the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) protocol. Tasters score separate attributes, then add them up to a total out of 100:

• Fragrance and aroma: the smell of the dry grounds and of the brewed coffee
• Flavour and aftertaste: what it tastes like, and what lingers after you swallow
• Acidity: the bright, lively quality in a coffee (which isn't the same as sour)
• Body: the weight and texture in your mouth
• Balance: how well everything works together
• Sweetness, uniformity and a clean cup: whether it's consistent from cup to cup and free of off-flavours

What the numbers mean

• Below 80: commercial grade, not specialty
• 80 to 84: specialty, "Very Good"
• 85 to 89: specialty, "Excellent"
• 90 and above: specialty, "Outstanding", and very rare

So 85 sits comfortably above the line between specialty and everyday coffee, and not far below the very top.

Why I'd care about it when buying online

In a shop you can ask about the bag. Online, you only have what the seller tells you, and words like "premium" and "artisan" get used loosely. A cupping score gives you something more concrete: a number from a tasting process, not a slogan.

It can't tell you whether you'll love the flavours. That's down to your taste. What it does tell you is that the coffee has been properly assessed and sits well above the baseline.

Our House Roast

The Amici House Roast is a single-origin Brazilian coffee from the Fazenda El Dorado estate in Alto Mogiana Mineira, grown at 1,205 metres from Red Catuaí. Its tasting notes are hazelnut, mango and milk chocolate. If you'd like to know more about Brazilian coffee, read our Brazilian coffee guide, and for the difference between single origins and blends, see this guide.

Quick questions

Is a higher score always better? It means the coffee was judged more distinctive and more consistent, but it's still down to your taste. A coffee you love at 83 beats one you don't enjoy at 88.

Does every coffee get a score? No. Most everyday coffee is never formally cupped. Scoring is mostly used by specialty roasters and importers.

Does a score last forever? No. It applies to one lot from one harvest, tasted at one point in time.

Is a cupping score the same as a certification? No. A score measures how the coffee tastes. Certifications like Organic or Fairtrade cover how it was grown and traded.

For the bigger picture, see what speciality coffee actually means.