The Specialty Coffee Association cupping protocol is the lingua franca of coffee evaluation. It was published in the early 2000s and was the basis of every cupping score, every Q-grader exam, and every competition until November 2024 (when CVA 2024 replaced it — covered in the next article). The 2004 protocol still matters: it's the version most roasters trained on, and the one you'll see referenced everywhere.
The numbers
- Ratio: 8.25 g of coffee per 150 ml of water (1:18.18). The exact ratio is part of the protocol — don't round.
- Grind: coarse, with 70–75% of particles passing a US #20 sieve (~850 microns). Similar to French press.
- Water: filtered, around 93 °C, neutral mineral profile (TDS ~150 mg/L, pH near 7).
- Steep: exactly 4 minutes, undisturbed.
- Bowls: 5 identical glass or ceramic bowls per coffee, 7–9 oz capacity. Five lets you average out bowl-to-bowl variation.
The four-minute clock
Pour water and start the timer.
- 0:00–4:00: water sits on the bed, crust forms, no contact with the cup.
- 4:00: break the crust. Push the spoon through the floating layer three times, leaning in to inhale as it releases. This is the aroma evaluation — the highest-volatility compounds escape only here.
- 4:00–8:00: skim the surface clear of any remaining floating grounds and foam, using two spoons (one to lift, one to wipe clean). Wait for the brew to cool to roughly 70 °C.
- 8:00 onward: tasting. Slurp forcefully from the spoon — you want the liquid aerosolised across your whole palate, hitting front, mid, and back of the tongue at once. Slurping isn't optional; without it, you miss half the flavour.
What you score, in order
- Fragrance (dry grounds, before water).
- Aroma (when breaking the crust at 4:00).
- Flavour (the taste while warm).
- Aftertaste (what lingers).
- Acidity (intensity and quality, separate ratings).
- Body (mouthfeel weight, separate from quality).
- Balance (how the previous attributes interact).
- Sweetness (perceived from caramelised sugars).
- Clean cup and uniformity (off-flavours, consistency across the 5 bowls).
- Overall (subjective preference).
Each is scored 6.00 to 10.00 in 0.25 increments. Total possible: 100 points. A coffee scoring 80+ is "specialty grade."
How competition use differs
Competition cupping (used in roasting championships and Q-grading) is the same protocol with stricter calibration. Cuppers train against reference coffees, and inter-cupper agreement is part of judging. The mechanics are identical — what changes is the scrutiny.
Adaptations worth knowing
- Dark roasts: drop water to 90 °C and grind one notch coarser. Dark roasts extract faster and over-extract under standard conditions.
- Comparing wide ratios: the SCA spec is fixed at 1:18.18, but for home comparison you can run 1:18 across all samples and still get meaningful results.
The next article covers what changed in November 2024, when SCA published the new CVA standard.