Cup
Tasting, cupping and what makes a cup good.
How we taste
5 entries- TastingHow we taste coffeeHow taste, smell by two routes, and touch combine into the single impression we call flavour – and why cuppers smell, slurp and wait in a fixed order, and why people perceive the same cup differently.Source-checked
- TastingThe aroma of coffeeMore than a thousand volatile compounds have been found in roasted coffee, yet a few dozen key odorants carry its smell. How they form in roasting, how they are lost, and how chemists find them with the human nose.Source-checked
- TastingBody and mouthfeelHow coffee feels in the mouth – thickness, oiliness, smoothness, grit and the drying sensation of astringency – what in the cup causes it, how brew method and filter change it, and how cuppers and laboratories measure it.Source-checked
- TastingCrossmodal effectsHow one sense changes what another reports – why the colour, shape and feel of a cup, a label, a sound or a smell can shift how sweet, sour or good the same coffee seems, and why cuppers taste blind.Source-checked
- TastingFlavour languageHow the coffee trade puts flavour into words – the World Coffee Research Sensory Lexicon, the Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel built from it, and the tick lists of the SCA cupping form – and where shared words fall short.Source-checked
Cupping
2 entries- CuppingCuppingThe coffee trade’s standard tasting method – coffee steeped in bowls, smelled, slurped and judged – and how the SCA’s 2024 Coffee Value Assessment separates describing a coffee from scoring it.Source-checked
- CuppingSensory science methodsHow sensory scientists test coffee beyond cupping – difference tests such as the triangle test, trained descriptive panels, consumer liking scales, and the coding, serving order and statistics that make results trustworthy.Source-checked
Coffee and health
7 entries- HealthCaffeineThe bitter purine alkaloid that makes coffee stimulating – where it sits in the plant, how much reaches the cup and why that varies so much, what it does in the body, how it is broken down, and the official safe-intake advice.Source-checked
- HealthWhat’s in a cup of coffeeA cup of black coffee is almost all water. The rest – about 1–2% in filter coffee – holds caffeine, chlorogenic acids, melanoidins, minerals and traces of niacin. What the published figures say per cup, and what they mean.Source-checked
- HealthBioactive compoundsCaffeine, chlorogenic acids, trigonelline, diterpenes, melanoidins and minerals in a cup of coffee – how much a cup holds, where the body takes them up, and what has been measured in people.Source-checked
- HealthCoffee and digestionWhat studies show about coffee and the digestive tract – stomach acid, reflux, the gallbladder, the colon and gut microbes – which effects were measured in people, which are associations, and what “low-acid” claims measure.Source-checked
- HealthContaminants and food safetyThe food-safety picture of coffee from farm to cup – mould toxins, pesticide residues, roasting contaminants, metals from machines, microbes in cold brew and fraud – and the limits EU and Swiss food law set.Source-checked
- HealthCoffee and long-term healthWhat large reviews, genetic studies, trials and health authorities report about habitual coffee drinking and mortality, heart disease, diabetes, liver disease, cancer and more – and why most of it shows association, not cause.Source-checked
- HealthHow to read coffee health newsA sourced checklist for judging a coffee-and-health headline – the type of study behind it, relative versus absolute risk, what a “cup” means, confounding, missing studies, funding and press-release spin.Source-checked
Drinks and serving
3 entries- ServingCoffee drinks around the worldHow coffee is prepared, sweetened, spiced and served in different cultures, from Turkish and Arabic coffee to the Italian bar, Nordic kettle coffee, Viennese coffeehouses and café de olla.Source-checked
- ServingServing temperatureHow hot coffee is served and drunk, how the flavour changes as a cup cools, how fast it cools, and what burn research and the World Health Organization’s cancer agency say about very hot drinks.Source-checked
- ServingCups and vesselsWhat the cup does to coffee once it is poured – how lids, volume and the cup wall change cooling, how the shape of the opening changes aroma, what the cupping standard specifies, and the food-contact rules for cup materials.Source-checked
Footprint of a cup
1 entryCulture and history
4 entries- CultureCoffee as food in EthiopiaIn Ethiopia the coffee plant gives more than the brewed bean. Coffee berries cooked in butter, leaf infusions and husk drinks, what sources say about each, and how two of them became regulated foods in the European Union (EU).Source-checked
- CultureThe Ethiopian coffee ceremonyHow coffee is washed, pan-roasted, pounded and boiled in a clay jebena and served in three rounds in Ethiopia, what the ceremony means in social and religious life, and what the written sources show and do not show.Source-checked
- CultureCoffeehouses from Mecca to EuropeHow the coffeehouse spread from Sufi circles in Yemen to Mecca, Cairo and Istanbul, then to Oxford, London, Vienna and Leipzig, and which of the famous dates and stories are documented.Source-checked
- CultureEras and waves of coffeeThe “first, second and third wave” story of coffee – where the terms came from, what each wave is said to stand for, the dated milestones behind it, and why historians call the model too narrow.Source-checked
Tools
3 tools- ToolCaffeine in your cupEstimate the caffeine in an espresso, a filter cup or your own brew, compared with official intake advice.
- ToolFlavour wheelExplore 85 aroma and flavour attributes in nine families, the five main tastes and the mouthfeel terms, and see where each one is ticked on a CVA cupping form.
- ToolCupping score calculator (CVA)Score a cupping session sample by sample: eight sections from 1 to 9, then the cups for uniformity and defects, and get each affective score.