Walk into any specialty coffee roastery in the world and you will find a table lined with small bowls of freshly ground coffee, a row of spoons, and people slurping loudly. This is coffee cupping — the universal language of the coffee industry. And at BRÜ in Basel, we are opening this world to you, completely free of charge.
What Is Coffee Cupping?
Cupping is the standardized method professionals use to evaluate coffee. Unlike brewing a cup at home, cupping strips away all variables — grinder settings, filter types, brew ratios — and focuses purely on what is in the bean. Ground coffee steeps directly in hot water in a small bowl. You break the crust, skim the surface, and taste with a spoon. That is it. Simple, repeatable, and remarkably revealing.
The method was developed to give buyers, roasters, and farmers a common framework for describing flavor. When a roaster in Basel and a farmer in Ethiopia both cup the same lot, they can agree on what they taste — because the protocol is identical everywhere.
How Cupping Differs from Regular Coffee Tasting
When you drink your morning coffee, you experience a single brew with all its variables baked in. Cupping is different in three important ways:
- Blind comparison: Multiple coffees sit side by side. You taste them without knowing the origin, forcing your palate to do the work rather than your expectations.
- Standardized preparation: Every bowl uses the same ratio (8.25 g per 150 ml), the same water temperature (93 °C), and the same steep time (4 minutes). This removes brewer influence entirely.
- Systematic scoring: Each coffee is scored across categories like fragrance, acidity, body, sweetness, balance, and aftertaste. You are not just deciding whether you "like" a coffee — you are mapping its character.
What You Will Learn at Our Free Sessions
Our Coffee Cupping & Sensory sessions are guided experiences designed for anyone curious about coffee — no prior knowledge required. Here is what a typical session covers:
- Tasting technique: How to slurp (yes, loudly), how to aerate coffee across your palate, and how to identify flavors beyond "strong" or "mild."
- The SCA cupping protocol: We walk you through the Specialty Coffee Association's official method step by step — the same protocol used at competitions and by green buyers worldwide.
- Scoring fundamentals: You will fill out a simplified cupping form, scoring each coffee on aroma, flavor, acidity, body, and overall impression.
- Defect recognition: Learn to spot common defects — from ferment and phenol to past-crop staleness — so you understand what separates specialty grade from commodity coffee.
- Terroir and processing: Taste how geography, altitude, soil, and processing methods (washed, natural, honey) shape the cup. A washed Ethiopian Yirgacheffe next to a natural Brazilian Cerrado tells the story better than any textbook.
The SCA Cupping Protocol: The Basics
For those who want to try cupping at home or simply want to understand the framework before attending, here is how the SCA protocol works:
- Ratio: 8.25 grams of coffee per 150 ml of water.
- Grind: Slightly coarser than typical drip — roughly 70-75% of the particles should pass through a 20-mesh sieve.
- Water temperature: 93 °C (just off the boil).
- Steep: Pour water directly over the grounds. Wait 4 minutes.
- Break the crust: Push the floating grounds aside with a spoon, lean in, and inhale the aroma — this is the "break" and it is one of the most revealing moments.
- Skim and taste: Remove the remaining grounds from the surface. Once the coffee cools slightly, begin tasting with a spoon, slurping to spread it across your palate.
You taste the coffee at multiple temperatures as it cools, because different flavors emerge at different stages. A coffee that is bright and citrusy when hot may turn chocolatey and sweet as it approaches room temperature.
Why We Offer This for Free
We believe coffee education should not have a price barrier. Cupping is not an elite skill — it is a sensory exercise that anyone can learn, and it fundamentally changes how you experience coffee. When people in our community understand what makes a coffee special, the entire local coffee culture rises.
Our free sessions are our way of giving back to Basel. We want this city to be a place where people care about what is in their cup, where conversations about origin and process are as natural as talking about the weather. That starts with access — and access should be free.
Book Your Spot
Our Coffee Cupping & Sensory sessions are open to everyone in the Basel community. Spaces are limited to keep the experience personal, so we recommend reserving ahead.
No experience necessary. Just bring curiosity and an open palate. We supply the coffee, the spoons, and the loud slurping encouragement.