Just wanted to pass on some interesting information and feedback about an 
attempt at cupping we tried last week.
1st of all, we made some solutions and tested out taste buds as per http://www.eafca.org/articles/scaa_form.pdfEveryone did very well using the standard solutions.  Did get to do the 
mixed solutions since it would have taken too much time but planning on 
doing it next time as a warm-up test.
Next we had 6 coffees,
Brazil Fazenda=
 
Ipanema "Dulce"
Brazil Matas de=
 
Minas -Fazenda Brauna
Yemen Mokha Ismaili=
 (Hirazi)
Sumatra 
Iskandar Triple-Pick
Guatemala 
Organic Cobán - El Tirol Estate
and a brick of Nabob, pre-roasted, pre-ground, bought at the local store.
The purpose was to see if people could blindly pick up a cup they would 
like and be able to identify it amongst other cups.
All coffee were roasted to start of 2nd 4 days prior to the cupping=
 exercise.
The day of the cupping, 18 cups were used.  Each of the 6 coffees were 
placed in 3 of the 18 cups and al the cups were mixed up so nobody would 
know what they were drinking.  This was a great way to get out teenage kids=
 
involved since they had the papers with which cup is which.
Everyone got to see, feel, smell the green, roasted and ground 
beans.  Nobody liked that Yemen gound beans.
Then after putting in the water, and waiting, the tasting started.
The interesting point was that nobody was able to pick up a cup that they 
liked and some of us were able to identify at least 1 group of 3 cups due 
to it's specific flavour, althought we did not like the coffee from the 3 
cups that we identified as being the same.
Now keeping in mind that nobody had ever partaken in a cupping and 2 of the=
 
people didn't even know they were going to a cupping until they were there,=
 
most correctly put together the following 2 coffees together, Sumatra dn 
Yemen, and everyone did not like Yemen.
Unfortunately, after all this , nobody came up with a coffee that they 
liked, so we will do it again in a week or 2.
Based on the previous, I have 2 questions.
1) Was this a good format, way of trying to come up with a coffee that most=
 
people like.
2) What would be some coffee that should be cupped together to show a wide=
 
range of flavour, constrast amongst coffee so that the likelyhood of 
someone finding one that they like would be increased.
All the

Luc cupping can be a bit labor intensive, You did good using 3 cups of the
same bean. This is done to check the coffees uniformity from one cup to
another.
You smell the dry, and then the wet for fragrenence and aroma. slurping is a
learned art, to get all of the tongue and the back of throat at the same
time with out choking takes practice. You will want to mark the coffee on
its acidity, body, finish also making special notes along with the scores.
You also will want to go back and taste again as the coffee cools. Its a
neat experience and takes time and practice to become good at it. It would
help if you have a experienced cupper to help you identify what you are
tasting. Terminology can be deceiving.
Good luck.
RK

Interesting experiment.  How did you brew the coffees?
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Ed Needham
To Absurdity and Beyond!
homeroaster ... d.o.t ... com
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