Starbucks invited me to visit the cupping room in its Seattle headquarters.
Cupping is a coffee industry practice where experts test cups of coffee for quality.
Cupping was surprisingly technical, and I was impressed by how fast the experts moved.
When I was in Seattle for Starbucks investor day, the chain invited me to visit headquarters and see how experts test coffee behind the scenes.
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I visited the cupping room, where specially trained Starbucks workers taste hundreds of cups of coffee each day to ensure they’re high quality.
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We started with a geography lesson because Starbucks sources its beans from all three major coffee-growing regions in the world: Africa, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific.
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Brazil, Vietnam, and Colombia are the biggest coffee-producing countries in the world, head of Starbucks Coffee Trading Company Tim Scharrer told Insider.
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Coffee grown in different regions has different distinct flavor notes.
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The cuppers’ job in this room is to make that the base flavors of each type of coffee are exactly what they should be, so they can be used in Starbucks drinks, the company’s head of coffee and tea quality Andrew Linnemann said.
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With that information in mind, I put on a green apron to do my own cupping.
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First, all the raw green coffee shipments are inspected for quality, scent, and consistency, similar to how you might check produce at a grocery store, Linnemann said.
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Then it’s roasted in small batches in an adjoining room.
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All the samples of coffee beans must be treated exactly the same way so they can be compared fairly.
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Roasters carefully watch temperature and timing to ensure consistent beans.
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Then, Starbucks provided me with a sample to test myself with one coffee from each of the three regions.
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After brewing, the coffee forms a crust on top.
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I used a spoon to “break” the crust, which released the aromas beneath.
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The three cups had distinct smells that came through, so it was important to rinse my spoon between them to keep them separate.
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It’s a messy process. “If you don’t get coffee on your nose, you’re doing it wrong,” Bonnie Hall, senior manager of Global Coffee Quality and Operations at Starbucks, told me.
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I learned that the roasting process also has an impact on flavor, sometimes leaving a “bready,” baking smell.
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It was kind of like wine tasting, where I suddenly noticed flavors I never had before once someone with more knowledge pointed them out to me.
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The Ethiopian coffee, for example, had a very fruity scent that stood out when I tried it alongside other blends, while the Sumatran was more chocolatey.
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For the next step, cuppers used spoons to take off any remaining grounds ahead of actually tasting them.
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Then it was time to taste, under instruction from the experts.
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Like wine tasting, coffee cuppers traditionally spit out the samples into a spittoon.
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Using the spittoon was by far the most intimidating part because it goes against all my instincts to spit into a giant bucket in public.
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To taste it, I dipped a spoon slightly into the coffee and slurped it off the spoon.
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Tasting was more challenging than it sounds too because you have to aspirate the coffee, which is basically loudly slurping it.
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This coats your taste buds and gets the aroma in your nose because smelling is key to tasting all the notes.
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While I moved slowly, trying to avoid getting coffee everywhere and noticing subtle flavors, the professionals moved shockingly fast.
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The cuppers sped down the line, scooping coffee up with a spoon in each hand before loudly slurping and spitting and moving on to the next cup.
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The Starbucks workers explained how this room is essential to the creation of every drink at Starbucks.
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All coffee is tested hot with these cupping methods that are standard across the coffee industry.
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With each variety narrowed down to its flavor profile, Starbucks coffee experts can experiment with combinations to see what works best for different blends, espressos, and cold brew.
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When Starbucks was developing cold brew, coffee experts tested these same blends under different conditions before landing on the standard 20-hour brew time.
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About 70% of the drinks Starbucks sells now are cold, but cupping hot coffee is still key to guaranteeing the quality of those drinks and developing new ones.
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The quality of Starbucks coffee, a multi-billion dollar business, is ultimately in the hands of just a few experts who taste nearly 1,000 cups per week.
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