The Inky Dinky Spider Dept: Coffee cupping and rum...

Coffee, cigars and rum go togther like priests and choirboys. Indeed the brothers are known to have a tipple now and then. Oh and some rum, cigars and Belgian beer as well, lol...
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Capn Jimbo
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The Inky Dinky Spider Dept: Coffee cupping and rum...

Post by Capn Jimbo »

WTF does "Cupping Correction" have to do with tasting rum?


Sue Sea and I are now on our third order of unroasted green coffee beans from Sweet Maria's for a total of around 24 pounds of coffees from all the important coffee growing regions of the world. Everytime you order, they always include a copy of their informative newsletter with subjects like particular plantations and families, roasting and this time the subject was...


Coffee tasting.

Coffee tasting is actually more complex than the tasting of wine or spirits. In rum tasting and reviewing we are really concerned with aroma, taste and finish. Compare this to coffee where they rate each of these categories from 1 to 10:

Dry fragrance
Wet aroma
Brightness (acidity)
Flavor
Body
Finish
Sweetness,
Clean Cup (absence of earthy, funky flavors)
Complexity
Uniformity

Image
(Credit: Sweet Maria's Coffee, Spider Graph)

The results are published in what is called a Spider Graph, with each factor forming a spoke of a wheel and marked from the center (1) to the "rim" of the wheel (10). The scoring marks are then connected and voila! A spider web. This allows the reader to find a visual "shape" and overall score that represents his preferred profile. Some cuppers also deducts points for "taints" (off flavors that don't ruin the cup) and moreso for "faults" (off flavors that really detract from the experience). Compare to rum now, eh?


But that's not all...

Sweet Maria's (and others) then add or substract a "Cuppers Correction" (coffee tasters are called "cuppers" who engage not in tasting, but in "cupping"). As an example the cupper might upscore a coffee that didn't score all that well on any one factor, but which exhibited a good overall quality.

For an example, they cite a modestly scored Sumatran coffee that was upscored as the cupper felt the roast was a particularly great example of its origin (or style if you will). The point: break it down as they will, in the end the final score depends not on the sum of its parts but on the whole and the judgment, skill and experience of a master cupper who applies his or her "Cupper's Correction".

In spirits the masters get to the same place, but these few competent reviewers don't bother with scoring the parts at all.


So who should learn from whom?

Those of you with experience have come to know the leading spirits reviewers - think Michael Jackson, Dave Broom, Janis Robinson, Ralfy, Robert Parket, et al. You won't find any of them scoring bottle and caps, or even breaking down their scores in categories. Why?

A spirit is necessarily more than the sum of its parts. A lot more. A review is NOT merely a simplistic and self-aggrandizing laundry list of inacessible descriptors designed mostly to show off one's amazing palate and vocabulary. No, a good review is quite the opposite.

Read any of the greats and you will note their brevity and conciseness as they manage to communicate the entirety of the experience in amazingly short but somehow meaningful short descriptions, typically a short paragraph. Generally the spirit get a capsule conclusion and a single score using the the basic American scoring system (F to A, 50 - 100, 1 to 5 Stars). Their concerns are a compiliation of harmony, consistency, complexity and the mysterious and magic X-factor that makes a spirit somehow special and memorable, and/or a truly fine example of its style and intent.

We also know the faux reviewers like the wordy and now retired Lancemeister, the frivolously remote and now retired Tree and the simply bizarre and needs to retire Wolfboy. Or worse, the usual suspects, the commercial "...it's all good" regurgitators of marketing copy. It's a real shame when rum lovers must depend on commercially influenced websites. Sadly, there are really few competent and honest rum reviewers though here at The Rum Project we do try to be that. Whether we achieve our goal of accessibility, honesty, accuracy and meaningfulness is debatable, but we have surely achieved our main goal: communicating the issue and educating the common lover of spirits so that he/she or in between have the tools to come to their own conclusions. In closing if there's one thing we can learn from coffee, it's this:

In scoring coffee it's called the "Cuppers Correction". In spirits it's called... Dave Broom. Or Michael Jackson. Or Ralfy, or dare I say...
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