Coffee cupping is the practice of evaluating various brewed coffee from cups placed side-by-side for its properties such as the aroma, taste and mouth-feel. It is usually done by professional purveyors in the industry who are responsible with sourcing and quality control. As long as proper protocols are followed, it can also be done by anyone who wants to learn more about coffee too.

Knockhouse Supply Co has been hosting free public cupping every Sunday and we were treated to the highly prized COE (Cup of Excellence) beans from Guatemala last Sunday!

Will Leow and Angelo Tan from Knockhouse setting up the cupping table.

20 types of COE beans ranking from 1 to 20 were cupped. More info on the ranking and the beans available here.

The ranks were given objectively based on COE cupping standard which has little to do with personal preference. That said, all the beans present last Sunday were of very high quality! We slurped, we smelled, exchanged tasting notes and my personal favorites are ‘El Centro‘ which is ranked #4 and ‘Los Jutes‘ which is ranked #2.

The ‘Los Jutes’ tasted bright with lots of fruity and flora notes. I wasn’t able to describe further until another fellow cupper described it tasting like ‘Bandung‘! And I couldn’t disagree, Bandung was one of the taste profile! Now imagine this coffee as espresso with well frothed milk 🙂

The coffee degustation did not end when the cupping stopped. We were also treated to geisha coffee and we had an enjoyable time learning from Angelo on his recent experience in Dublin for WBC2016 (World Barista Championship). Naturally there were lots of post-WBC discussions 🙂

It’s a great place to connect with like minded folks. A conducive platform to train our palates and get brew tips from the pros as well! The cuppers i’ve met are definitely more geeky (coffee sense) than hipster. Check out Knockhouse’s social media page for more details on upcoming public cupping.

Finally some photos of myself in a separate cupping session in Knockhouse thanks to Nosleep Studio which is a creative collective company and they have created coffee-themed designer t-shirts 🙂