SCA Coffee Value Assessment (CVA) for Cuppers Course

• The SCA CVA for Cuppers will replace the 2004 version of the cupping score sheet.
• The CVA will change the coffee industry by setting new quality assessment trends. COE and ACE have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the World of Coffee Copenhagen trade show. This collaboration aims to unify the approach to defining and appreciating top-quality specialty coffees, ushering in a new era for the industry. .

The Coffee Value Assessment Course for Cuppers is a two-day professional update for coffee cuppers. During the course, participants will learn and become familiarized with the SCA’s new Coffee Value Assessment (CVA) system as a tool to evaluate coffee quality. The course is full of hands-on activities to demonstrate the elements of CVA, including several cuppings, though it also includes some lectures and time for discussion. A certificate will be issued to those students who pass both the theoretical and practical tests, attesting that they have acquired CVA as a cupping tool.

Objective:

• General Objective: After completing the CVA Course for Cuppers, participants will be able to correctly use and integrate the SCA’s Coffee Value Assessment (CVA) tools into their cupping practice.
• Specific Objectives: After completing the CVA Course for Cuppers, participants will be able to:
  • Identify and utilize the new CVA sensory references.
  • Explain the function and background of the key sensory assessment tools used in CVA: 15-point intensity scales, CATA lists, and hedonic scales.
  • Use the CVA Descriptive and Affective Forms to describe and evaluate coffee.
  • Explain and use the new CVA system, which includes the descriptive, affective, and extrinsic evaluation tools, and learn how they are replacing the 2004 scoring system.

Target Audience:

• Coffee lovers who are experienced with cupping and wish to learn the new SCA CVA system.
• Coffee Professionals: Baristas, roasters, cuppers, buyers, etc.
• Coffee Cupping Professionals: Q Graders, Sensory Skills Students from Intermediate Level and above.

The Course:

• Specialty Coffee Association CVA Curriculum.
• Duration: 2 days
• Tuition fee: HK$6,200 $5,900 (SCA fee included)

Frequently Asked Questions

General

• What does the Coffee Value Assessment do?
• It allows coffee experts to inventory the valuable attributes of a coffee according to the SCA’s definition of specialty coffee. These include physical, sensory, and informational attributes.
• Does the Coffee Value Assessment determine the price of a coffee?
• No. Only market actors can determine the price of a given coffee. The value assessment system seeks to create a profile of all the valuable attributes of a coffee, so the total value of a coffee can be determined.
• It’s called “value” assessment system; what determines value?
• A coffee’s value is determined by its attributes—if it shows valuable attributes, it should be a valuable coffee. An attribute, however, may or may not be valuable for different market actors. The idea is to be transparent about what attributes are most valued, so that a coffee that shows them could be appropriately evaluated.
• Is this the same as cupping?
• Cupping, the standardized method of sensory evaluation in coffee, is used to determine the sensory attributes of a coffee using two tests: a descriptive assessment and an affective assessment. Cupping is an element of the Coffee Value Assessment System, along with a physical and extrinsic assessment of the coffee.
• Why is cupping divided into descriptive and affective categories?
• It has long been known that the description of flavors in a coffee is different from an assessment of liking or quality. In the previous SCA cupping system, these concepts were mixed together. This new system separates descriptive assessment— the objective description of a coffee’s flavor profile—from affective assessment, the subjective impression of a coffee’s quality. This separation is considered best practice in sensory and consumer science.
• How will this affect coffee producers?
• In our surveys of current users, we learned that the 2004 SCA system seemed to reduce a coffee’s value to a single score. This system seeks to provide all market actors—including producers—with a more holistic and transparent assessment of a coffee, allowing them to find the best possible markets for their products.
• What is the biggest advantage of using this new value assessment system?
• The 2004 version could be summarized as “a method to produce a coffee’s score,” and this single, one-dimensional score became more important for value discovery than most other coffee attributes. By taking a holistic approach, this new value assessment system looks at all the different attributes of a coffee, of which the score is just one attribute. It is therefore a more thorough evaluation than just the score. We hope this results in a more transparent and fair approach to discover a coffee’s value.
• How can using this value assessment system help connect the industry to end consumers?
• This system to assess value proposes a common language to describe coffee along the value chain and vis-à-vis consumers. Rather than having a single cupping score that tells them little, consumers will have the opportunity to get a coffee’s description, using standardized descriptors. It will also be easier to communicate extrinsic attributes to consumers and along the chain.
• So, the specialty “threshold” is gone? As a producer, how can I obtain a premium on price without a clear distinction of better quality?
• If a buyer is making a purchasing decision based on the singular “cupping score” alone, users will still be able to differentiate between coffees through the score—a 90-score coffee is clearly more appreciated by whoever assessed it than an 80-score coffee. As the industry adopts the CVA, we anticipate that, alongside a score in the new scale, contracts might include descriptive and extrinsic assessments as appendices. Future contracts may even list specific intrinsic or extrinic attributes to be shown by a coffee in a lot, rather than just a score.

Transition Period

• Does the old 2004 form become invalid or obsolete immediately?
• No, the two systems will coexist for a period of time while the industry helps us to refine the new system. We estimate an SCA standard pertaining to the new system will be published in late 2024 or 2025. In the meantime, we recommend taking advantage of this “provisional standard” phase to familiarize yourself with the new system as a cupper or as an organization.
• What if my current contracts (buyer or seller) include a score? How can this translate for business transactions?
• The score using the 2004 version of the protocol can still be included in contracts. We are hoping in the future, as the industry adopts the new system, that contracts might include a descriptive assessment as an appendix in the contract as well as the score in the new scale or—even better—specific intrinsic or extrinsic attributes to be shown by a coffee in a lot.

Coffees to Assess

• Can I assess other Coffea species using this system?
• The system has not been tested for species other than arabica, yet. Having said that, we believe the sensory assessments (both descriptive and affective) may work for other species, including canephora and liberica. However, the physical assessment is more exclusive to arabica and might not work for other species.
• Can I assess any processing method using this system?
• The sensory components of the system (descriptive and affective assessments) have been tested with natural and other processing methods, with great success (arabica only). However, the physical assessment might not be fully adequate to test processing methods other than washed, as it does not consider some of the effects of the different processing methods on the physical aspect of the bean.
• Can I assess commodity coffee using this system?
• Yes, this system is better suited than the 2004 version for assessing commodity coffee, as it allows for a wider range of qualities. The affective rating scale starts at 6.00, which is labeled ‘good’ in the 2004 version.

Using the Assessment

• I don’t have time, nor coffee, to do two cuppings—may I combine the affective and descriptive assessments?
• Yes, you can do the affective and descriptive assessments in parallel, though you should be aware that there is higher risk of bias when you combine both assessments than when you do them separately.
• Is cupper calibration still required, or is this all based on preference now?
• In sensory science, “calibration” refers to the training of sensory panelists to accurately use a set of sensory references in a very specific testing environment and protocol. Although the specialty coffee industry has adopted this term widely, particularly in coffee competitions, the SCA suggests that instead, the practice the industry commonly refers to as “calibration” be better understood as “alignment.” This is because groups of assessors (i.e., a cupping group) are not being asked to perform in the specific manner of a trained sensory panel.
  Regarding the descriptive assessment, for a better group performance, tasters should get aligned in the use of the intensity scales and the use of descriptors. Regarding the affective assessment, you can always align with someone else’s preferences, which makes total sense along a supply chain, where all suppliers are aligned with the chain’s “preferences.” Affective alignment, however, does not make much sense when we are talking about radically different cultures, markets, or supply chains. In those cases, it is more advisable to agree on the descriptive assessment—which is objective—and “agree to disagree” on the affective.
• Why was “balance” removed instead of “overall”?
• In the 2004 version of the protocol, both “balance” and “overall” looked at how all the sensory components of the cup interacted with each other to produce an overall impression, though “balance” was supposed to be more “objective,” while “overall” was supposed to be more “subjective.” Today, we know that both balance and overall were actually affective ratings of the overall perception of a cup’s sensory attributes: there is no such thing as an “objectively” balanced cup: what is “too acidic” for some might be perfectly balanced for others. Therefore, we integrated “balance” into our current “overall”—you still get to rate a cup’s balance, as part of that “overall,” but we no longer assume every person has the same ideal of what a balanced cup should be. “Overall,” on the other hand, as a holistic, affective rating of a coffee’s sensory attributes, makes sense as an element to be considered in an affective assessment.

Scoring

• What will happen to my coffee’s score? (Will my score be lower now?)
• Compared to the 2004 version scoring scale, with most coffees between 80 and 88, the new scale is designed to be wider. This means low-scoring coffees (typically below 79 in the 2004 version) will get even lower scores, while high-scoring coffees will now get even higher scores.
• How can we know the coffee’s “true score” if every cupper has a different impression of quality?
• There has never been a true score for coffee. The score has never been an objective property of a lot of coffee. Every cupper has always had a different impression of quality, even though cuppers may align with each other. It is best to acknowledge that fact openly.
• Are the scores from the physical assessment considered in the overall coffee score or “final analysis” for a coffee?
• Only the affective assessment is considered for the coffee score. All other attributes may or may not be relevant on a case-by-case basis for value discovery. If a large, fancy bean is important for you, you might deem the bean size of coffee very valuable. Conversely, if a bean’s size and appearance are not as important for you as flavor, for instance, then the physical appearance should not play a big role in value discovery.
• If I don’t want to perform all three assessments, does this affect the score that I can obtain?
• Remember the score comes from the affective assessment only; information from other assessments is not used to produce the score. If you want to get a score for the impression of quality, you must do the affective assessment. However, there are many situations where you don’t need to do all assessments—the full set of assessments is meant for evaluation of green coffee, especially in trading contexts. In other contexts, you might want to do only one assessment. For example, the descriptive assessment could be a good choice to profile a roasted coffee product. If you are in a green coffee trading context, we recommend completing all assessments separately in order to record all the different attributes of a coffee lot for value discovery purposes.
• May I come up with a hunch final score?
• Our research has shown over and over that all affective scores for the same coffee are highly correlated with each other. In other words, if you know the score of one of the sections—say flavor—you can predict the other scores and the final score with a reasonable level of confidence. Furthermore, for neurological reasons, some cuppers feel more comfortable producing a holistic result than breaking up their perceptions analytically. The above justifies the validity of “hunch final scores,” as long as the following conditions have been met:
  (i) the cupper is very familiar with the scoring scale, to the point where they can produce accurate “hunch” scores intuitively (this means you need to familiarize yourself with the new scale first);
  (ii) the coffee is thoroughly assessed and the cupping has not been abbreviated; and
  (iii) other parties are comfortable with the cupper’s producing an intuitive or holistic score. An alternative for the “hunch” final score is just to use the Overall score in the 9-point affective scale as a proxy for the total impression of quality.