Coffee Cupping vs. Coffee Tasting: What's the difference?

If you've been to our tasting room or visited other roasteries, you may have heard the terms Coffee Tasting or Coffee Cupping. But what does that mean? Are they the same thing? Do I have to be a professional to attend one of these? 

While we can't assume that every other roastery uses the same terms the same way, we can say that most of the time talking about coffee tastings/cuppings is a way of inviting you to experience and evaluate freshly roasted coffee. 

At East View, these are beginner-friendly events! No black tie, no hipster 'stache, nothing at all necessary except a little coffee curiosity. But these terms, for us, highlight two different practices. 

Every Thursday we invite you to a Coffee Cupping at 10am. This is an informal peek into the weekly evaluation of our freshly roasted coffee, more of a Quality Control focus and something that is industry standard practice. The aim is consistency so that we can accurately assess how our coffee tastes week to week. This practice is so communal - not only do we share it with our staff and customers, but it's a method used by producers, exporters, importers and roasters around the world. It's careful, but it's not pretentious! This is such a fun part of roasting and sharing coffee and it's a blast to introduce you to the weekly rhythm. 

Every Sunday we host a Coffee Tasting at 9am. This is also relaxed and informal, but it's also a little more flexible. We might "cup" coffee in the traditional sense, but we might make a pourover or hand out some samples of batch brew and talk about what we're tasting, discuss where the coffee comes from and any origin notes. It's a way to introduce you to something you may not have tried before, and give you some background on sourcing and women producers. Usually it'll be three different coffees, but sometimes it might be one coffee three ways! No matter what it'll be fun, informative and free. If you attend a Sunday Coffee Tasting you also snag $1 off a bag of retail coffee! Come Monday morning, you'll be awfully glad you've got some freshly roasted coffee for the week.

Both of these events last about 30 minutes and they're totally free! Grab a pal or two, come say hi and try some coffee with us!