Every score on BrewCult uses the SCA cupping form — the same ten attributes a professional cupping table scores, on the same 6-to-10 scale. We did not invent it, and that is the point: an 86 here means what an 86 means everywhere. This page explains each attribute, and how to actually find it in your cup.
The ten attributes
Fragrance / aroma
How the coffee smells — fragrance is the DRY grounds before water touches them, aroma is the wet coffee after. They are scored together as one attribute.
How to find it: Smell the grounds the moment you grind: that is fragrance. Pour water, wait, then smell again while stirring the surface: that is aroma. Sweet, floral, fruity, nutty and chocolatey smells score well; flat, papery or musty ones do not.
High: you would know this was good coffee with your eyes closed, before tasting. Low: it smells of little, or of cardboard.
Flavour
The main event — taste and smell working together in the middle of the sip. Not any single note, but the combined character of the coffee.
How to find it: Take a sip with some air (cuppers slurp to spray the coffee across the whole palate) and pay attention to the middle of the experience, after the first impression and before the finish. Can you name what you taste — a fruit, a sweetness, a chocolate? Distinct, nameable character scores higher than generic "coffee flavour".
High: distinct, expressive, you could describe it to a friend. Low: vague, woody, or unpleasant.
Aftertaste
What stays behind after you swallow — both how long it lasts and whether you are glad it did.
How to find it: Swallow, wait ten seconds, and notice what is still there. Good coffee leaves sweetness or pleasant flavour that fades slowly. Lesser coffee vanishes instantly, or worse, leaves bitterness, dryness or a chemical edge that outstays the good part.
High: a long, sweet, pleasant finish. Low: short, or lingering in a way you wish it would not.
Acidity
The brightness or liveliness of the cup — the quality that makes coffee taste vivid rather than flat. This is not "sourness", and more is not better: the score is for how PLEASANT the acidity is, not how much there is.
How to find it: Notice the sensation at the sides of your tongue right after the sip, the same place a bite of green apple or a squeeze of lime registers. Ask: does it sparkle, like fruit? Or does it bite, like vinegar? A great washed Ethiopian dances; an underripe or under-roasted coffee just puckers.
High: bright, sweet, fruit-like, integrated. Low: either lifeless and flat, or harsh and sour.
Body
The weight and texture of the coffee in your mouth — thin like tea, or heavy like cream. As with acidity, the score is for quality: a delicate body can be excellent, a heavy one can be muddy.
How to find it: Press your tongue against the roof of your mouth mid-sip and notice the thickness, the way you would compare skimmed milk with whole milk. Then notice the texture: silky, creamy, syrupy — or thin, gritty, astringent (that drying, sandpaper feeling is a texture fault, not a taste).
High: a texture that suits the coffee, from silky to syrupy. Low: watery, rough, or drying.
Uniformity
Whether the coffee tastes the same cup after cup. At a cupping table five cups of each coffee are brewed, and each consistent cup earns two of the ten points.
How to find it: At home you rarely brew five cups at once, so judge consistency across sips and across brews: does the same bag, brewed the same way, taste the same on Tuesday as it did on Sunday? Inconsistency usually points to uneven roasting or mixed beans.
High: every cup is the same cup. Low: one brew is lovely and the next is oddly different.
Balance
How the other attributes get along. Flavour, aftertaste, acidity and body in proportion, with nothing shouting over the rest and nothing missing.
How to find it: After scoring the parts, step back and ask about the whole: does the acidity overwhelm the sweetness? Does big body smother the delicate flavours? Or does every element support the others? Imagine a band — balance is nobody drowning out the singer.
High: everything in proportion; removing anything would hurt it. Low: one attribute dominates, or something feels absent.
Clean cup
The absence of anything that does not belong — no off-flavours from first sip to last. "Transparency" is a good synonym: nothing between you and the coffee.
How to find it: Taste from the first sip through the aftertaste asking one question: is there anything here that is not coffee? Mustiness, earthiness where it does not belong, fermented sharpness, mould, medicine. Each of the five cups free of interference earns two points.
High: nothing but coffee, start to finish. Low: off-notes interrupt, even briefly.
Sweetness
The pleasing fullness that comes from ripe, well-developed cherries — closer to the sweetness of a ripe peach than of table sugar. Its opposites are sourness, astringency and "green", grassy flavours.
How to find it: Let a sip sit a moment and notice whether the coffee feels generous and ripe, or thin and vegetal. Black coffee never tastes like sugar water; what you are looking for is the ripeness that makes fruit taste ready rather than early.
High: ripe, full, generous. Low: green, grassy, astringent — the taste of cherries picked too soon.
Overall
The honest, holistic verdict — the one place the form asks for your opinion rather than an analysis. It is also the one score everybody on this site gives, cupping or not.
How to find it: Ask the simplest question in coffee: how good was this, really? Would you buy it again? Does it deliver what its origin and roaster promise? A technically correct but boring coffee loses points here; a distinctive one that you could not stop drinking gains them.
High: you would seek this out again. Low: correct at best, forgettable at worst.
