If you’re new to coffee, the biggest gap is not taste—it’s language. This workshop helps you understand how customers and the coffee industry describe coffee, so you can taste with clarity and communicate with confidence.
Foundations of Coffee Cupping & Taste Calibration (2–3 Hours)
Learn how the coffee industry tastes, describes, and evaluates coffee using a structured, beginner-friendly approach. This session builds your foundation in SCA-style coffee attributes—including fragrance/aroma, flavour, body, and aftertaste—and gives you the confidence to cup coffees on your own.
Hosted at Sunshine Coffee Lab & Roastery (Chickmagalur, Karnataka), this workshop is designed for coffee enthusiasts and teams who want to compare coffees from different sources, understand quality differences, and apply tasting to real decisions.
Most importantly, it builds capability to run self-cuppings and create a basic quality qualification / procurement process—so you can purchase coffee with more confidence and consistency.
Session Highlights
- 2–3 hour guided cupping + taste calibration session
- Learn the core SCA sensory attributes: fragrance/aroma, flavour, aftertaste, acidity, body, balance, sweetness, overall
- Taste and compare Arabica vs Robusta with clear evaluation cues
- Understand how post-harvest processing changes flavour (washed, natural, honey, experimental lots when available)
- Build a simple, repeatable self-cupping routine you can use independently
- Certificate of Participation included for every participant
Designed For
This workshop is ideal for beginners who want to understand coffee language and tasting structure, as well as café teams, new baristas, and buyers/procurement teams who want a shared tasting standard. It is available as an individual session or a group taste calibration (recommended for teams who want consistent internal feedback and buying decisions).
The Sunshine Advantage
Sunshine combines real-world roasting experience with lab-led quality evaluation—so you don’t just “taste coffee,” you learn how to understand it and apply it in real decisions. You learn inside a working coffee lab and roastery, with coffees selected to create clear contrast and build sensory clarity faster.
Suggested Session Flow (2–3 Hours)
- Introduction to cupping & calibration: why cupping matters and how professionals evaluate coffee
- SCA attributes made simple: what each attribute means and how to identify it
- Guided cupping: Arabica vs Robusta comparison
- Guided cupping: processing impact (washed vs natural vs honey/experimental as available)
- Self-cupping & procurement basics: a repeatable workflow + a simple qualification checklist
Session Outcome
You leave with a clearer tasting vocabulary, stronger sensory confidence, and a practical method to compare coffees across roasters, origins, and suppliers. Most importantly, you gain the capability to self-cup and build a simple, repeatable quality purchase / procurement process before committing to a coffee.
