The Cup of Excellence sensory education training course has been delivered over the past 4 years with great success. Graduates have improved their sensory skills and gone on to participate in international juries with the Cup of Excellence program. Meet some of the best cuppers in the world, and test your sensory skills.

Curriculum

• Taste a wide range of coffee qualitities and improve your ability to score across the range of qualities
• In-depth lectures and discussions on COE, specialty coffee, and what makes COE coffee unique.
• Sensory exercises are designed to help you grow in perceiving and understanding aroma and taste. These exercises will be the start of learning to calibrate with the group.
• Tastings are designed to demonstrate the importance of the correct cupping procedure and the effects of different variables on cup profiles.
• Understanding common defects in coffee.
• Learning about the COE method for scoring coffee.
• Calibrating with a diverse group of cuppers over multiple cupping sessions.
• Introduction and discussion around COE’s unique way of evaluating cuppers’ skills and confidants.
• A test based on the program COE uses to select National Jury members.

Classes will begin at 9:00 and finish between 4:30 pm and 5:00 pm with an hour break for lunch, which will be provided. Be prepared to experience the Cup of Excellence (COE). You’ll cup many different coffees, processes, and cultivars, practice logistics and cupping protocol of a COE cupping, and take an exam just like National Jury sensory professionals. This will show you how you are calibrated with the rest of the jury and your sensory confidence with representative scores samples.

In the first two days, we focus on COE cupping, the protocol of identifying qualities, identifying common flavor attributes, scoring, and a common language. We then will advance to expose all participants to a technical approach to our quality variables, different varietals, and some common defects. Sessions include lab, lecture, and active discussions. We will also provide coffees from other countries for you to taste and learn about; processed naturals and honey/pulped naturals & varieties, etc.

The third day will be filled with multiple cupping and calibration sessions. The fourth day of the class will be the “test” with three cuppings back-to-back.

We’ll be actively standing during cupping and seated for discussions, so please wear comfortable clothing and shoes. No use of perfume or cologne allowed. Lunches to be provided.

Please bring a notebook and, if you like, samples of your roasted beans. You’ll have the opportunity to see other coffees from other attendees.

You will receive a COE cupping spoon, an apron, and other fun things at the beginning of the class. Upon completing the course, you will receive a certificate of completion signed by your instructor. Within three weeks, you will receive an email containing your testing results. The information you receive will be in the same format as those who undergo national jury testing.

This experience is intended to share the Cup of Excellence program with you, improve your cupping and sensory evaluation skills, and share with others in a jury setting. This is the best way to learn and calibrate your sensory skills. Thank you for joining us.

INSTRUCTOR: Alex Pond, ACE

Alex Pond is the Education Manager for the Cup of Excellence (CoE). Alex instructs and drives the CoE's Sensory Education Training program (SET). Alex's passion as a trainer is to teach people how to fairly and accurately evaluate coffees using the CoE score sheet and methods of cupping. Alex teaches SET courses in English and has instructed in almost 20 different countries.