Uniformity Attributes – SCA Cupping Form – This article is part of a group of posts that explain the 10 sensory attributes of the SCA Cupping Form (or SCA Arabica Cupping Form) based on knowledge from the book Sensory Science.
In cupping, the Uniformity attribute is defined as “uniformity between cups in the same coffee sample”, or in other words, the uniformity of the coffee beans in the batch.
Since according to the SCA’s cupping standard, assessing the uniformity of five coffee cups is considered a sufficient basis to evaluate how well the coffee is processed for the entire batch.
In fact, the cupper will evaluate each cup on the table. If they are identical, the cupper will tick all five squares in the Uniformity attribute pane on the form. If a cup is different, we uncheck a square – corresponding to the location of that cup (as shown below).
There is no quality standard for the homogeneity attribute, as this is just a simple comparison of the similarity between cups.
Since the cupper will try through all the coffee cups (which have identical appearances), this test can be seen as a sensory difference test, in which the evaluator must find the cup that is different from the rest.
In terms of sensory science, the Uniformity attribute assessment (or Sweetnes and Clean cup) is a simple variant of a sensory evaluation method called Check All That Apply (often abbreviated as CATA).
This is a rapid sensory profiling technique that can help identify the main organoleptic characteristics of a product, and not judge their intensity.
In a CATA test, participants were given a list of terms and asked to confirm the terms specific to the product. In the context of Cupping, this test is used to help Cupper determine if one cup is different from the rest!