Cup tasting is something you can practice at home with a relatively simple setup.
New to cup tasting? Start with what cup tasting is and how it differs from cupping to understand the exercise.
In this tutorial, Vito Adi Tjandrasurja, Brew Manager at the World Cup Tasters Championship 2026 in Bangkok, shows how to set up the exercise. You can also watch the tutorial on Instagram.
For this tutorial, we are using a Cup Taster Training Pack as the practice set. The pack contains four different coffees, with 100 grams of each coffee, giving you several combinations you can use for repeated practice.
The basic idea is simple: prepare different coffees, create a set of three cups where one coffee is different from the other two, then try to identify the different cup.
You can also recreate the same exercise using coffees you already have at home. The Cup Taster Training Pack simply gives you a ready set of coffees to work with.
Choose Your Difficulty Level
Before setting up the tasting, choose the difficulty level you want to practice.
The Cup Taster Training Pack comes in different levels of difficulty:
- Entry Level
- Intermediate
- Pro Level
The level refers to the difficulty of the coffees used for the cup tasting exercise. This allows you to choose a level based on the type of practice you want to do while keeping the same preparation and tasting method.
What You Need
For this practice, prepare:
- A Cup Taster Training Pack
- A batch brewer with a capacity of at least 1 liter
- Water
- A scale
- Tasting cups
- Labels or codes for each coffee
For this setup, use 50 grams of coffee with 1 liter of water. This does not have to be the only recipe you use. If you are practicing specifically for competition, make sure the ratio you use follows the current World Cup Tasters Championship rules and regulations.
The main thing for this exercise is to prepare enough brewed coffee to fill several tasting cups.
Step 1: Choose and Label Your Coffees
Start by choosing two coffees from the pack. Give each coffee its own label or code before continuing with the exercise, so you can keep track of which coffee is which when you begin creating the tasting sets.
The Cup Taster Training Pack contains four coffees, so you can repeat the exercise later with different combinations. In this guide, we call the four coffees A, B, C, and D, but any label or code works.
Step 2: Brew the Coffees
Measure 50 grams of each coffee and brew each one with 1 liter of water using a batch brewer. Try to brew the coffees at approximately the same time, which helps keep the tasting setup consistent.
Once the coffees are brewed, let them sit for around 4 to 6 minutes before setting up the tasting.
- Coffee
- 50 g
- Water
- 1 L
- Brew
- Together
- Rest
- 4–6 min
Step 3: Prepare the Pairing
Once the coffees are brewed and labeled, prepare the pairing for the tasting. Each set contains three cups: two cups contain one coffee, while the remaining cup contains the other coffee.
Keep track of which coffee is the different one before you begin tasting. The labels or codes help you record the correct pairing without relying on the coffee names.
Use two coffees from the same level for each pairing.
Step 4: Create the Cup Tasting Set
Pour the coffees into three tasting cups according to the pairing you have prepared. Two cups should contain the same coffee, and one cup should contain the other coffee.
The different coffee can be placed in different positions within the set, so the answer is not always in the same cup. For another round, you can reverse the pairing so that the coffee used once in the first set is used twice in the next set.
Step 5: Taste and Find the Different Cup
Once the three cups are ready, taste them and choose which one you think is different. That is the main goal of the exercise: compare the three cups and identify the one that is different from the other two.
After making your choice, check the answer against the label or code recorded during preparation.
Step 6: Reverse the Pairing
You can create another exercise using the same two coffees by reversing the pairing. If one coffee appeared once and the other appeared twice in the first set, switch their roles for the next set. You can also change the position of the different cup.
This allows you to create more than one practice round from the same pair of coffees.
Step 7: Try Different Coffee Pairings
Once you have completed the exercise with one pairing, choose another combination of coffees from the pack and repeat the process. Because the Cup Taster Training Pack contains four different coffees, you can create different pairings for multiple practice rounds.
- A + B
- A + C
- A + D
- B + C
- B + D
- C + D
The process stays the same: brew and label the coffees, prepare the pairing, pour three cups with one different coffee, and find the different cup. Then repeat with another pairing.
Practice Cup Tasting at Home
Cup tasting practice does not need a complicated setup. With the Cup Taster Training Pack, you can practice at home by following the steps above, then keep repeating them until you get good at it.
