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A decent Burr grinder with low grind retention. The top of the line is a Mahlkonig EK-43 but a Baratza will also do the trick. Other options are grinders from Fellow and even hand grinders from Orphan Espresso (we have a Lido-E we love). What you want is consistency of grinds and control.
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Cupping cups (at least 25).
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For cupping, you'll want a kettle or water tower. We like electric kettles better because heat is not while pouring from a tower to a non-electric kettle. Another option is an oversized kettle and induction plate.
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For pour overs, we recommend you have an Origami or V60, the corresponding filters, and a pourover kettle with an integrated thermometer that tells you the correct temperature of water to use when brewing. Reusable metal filters tend to let too much water escape without touching the coffee, but nylon reusable filters are OK. Many prefer paper filters though.
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We recommend a laser thermometer but it's not required
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Cupping spoons
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A precise gram scale that measures fractions of a gram
YOU'LL NEED
GRIND SIZE
Adjust your ​grinder so that 70-75 percent of the grinds pass through a 20 mesh sieve. If your coffee is tasting too muddy, your grind may be too fine (it shouldn't be an espresso grind). If your coffee is tasting too watery, you're probably grinding too course. ​
CUPPING RATIO
Use a 1:17 ratio. ML (or grams) water / 17 = grams of coffee to use. Calculate to take into account losing about 0.2 grams of coffee to grind retention (so if your calculation shows you'll need 12 grams of coffee, use 12.2 grams of coffee).
FRAGRANCE
When your coffee is ground and in the cup, smell it and note what you smell. If you smell absolutely nothing, your grind may be too coarse.
POUR
Fill ​your cupping cups to the top with water that is just off a boil but not literally still boiling. Don't spill. For cupping, it's better to use a typical tea kettle or electric kettle so lots of water flows in quickly at first, wetting all the grinds during the first part of the pour. Pour over kettles pour too slowly.
AROMA
Start smelling your coffee 30 seconds after the pour until 4 minutes go by and write down what you smell.
AROMA ON BREAK
4 minutes after pouring, push the grinds back and forth on the surface ("breaking") with a cupping spoon while holding your nose very close to the grinds, almost touching the surface with your nose the entire time (real close). Do not dunk down to the bottom so as not to disturb the grinds on the bottom and create an uneven or over-extraction. Write down your aroma results.
SKIM
Once you've smelled the aroma, lock the tips of two spoons together and move them across the surface of the cup to remove all grinds.
TASTE
After about 14 minutes (at 134 degrees), taste the coffee with your tasting spoon by slurping it in a way that sprays it all over the inside of your mouth. Repeat every 5 minutes until about 25 minutes have passed. Write down your notes on taste, acidity, body, and balance, noting how each feature changes over time. Try it totally cold as well and consider whether it's a good candidate for flash brew or cold brew.
CUPPING STEPS
POUR OVER STEPS
1.
Determine how many milliliters of water you would like to brew into coffee. A nice number is 350 milliliters, but it's fine if you want to make more or less than that (Note that 1 ML water = 1 gram of water).
2.
(water) / (15.45, a "magic number") = (grams of coffee you'll need).
3.
Heat your water to 205 degees, or slightly more since it will cool quite quickly. If you don't have a thermometer, bring it to a boil and then let it sit a minute before pouring.
4.
Rinse your paper pourover filter with hot filtered water right in its pourover device. This will both heat everything up and get rid of papery taste.
5.
Grind your coffee so that it is about the consistency of table salt. If it is too coarse it could taste too acidic, and if it is as fine as flour it will take forever to pour and taste muddy.
6.
After discarding any water in your range server (vessel that will hold the coffee), put the grinds in the now-damp filter.
7.
Put your pourover device with coffee grinds in it and receiving vessel all on top of a digital scale and set the "tare" to zero.
8.
Pour roughly 35 grams or so of water evenly in a circle to wet the grinds and stop.
9.
Wait about 30 seconds to allow the grinds to absorb water evenly (this is so you can have an even extraction later) (note some baristas like to mix the grinds around with a spoon at this point but there's not yet an industry standard)
10.
Continue pouring water in concentric circles so that all grinds are hit evenly with water. Space out your pours so that you do at least 4 or 5 (with pauses in between) until you reach the amount of coffee you decided (earlier) to brew.
11.
Serve, but wait until the coffee is sipping temperature. If it burns your lip it's still too hot.
12.
If your pourover takes more than 5 minutes, you probably need a slightly more coarse grind. If it takes less than 4 minutes, you probably need a finer grind.