Cropsters solutions for roasters, labs and traders and producers have included cupping solutions from the beginning. Our vision is to help create high-profile coffee and make coffee quality fully traceable. Our cupping solutions started out as simplified, single sheet-per-sample SCAA forms. Then we included bulk cupping functionalities, quality session scheduling and customizable cupping sheets. Now, we have designed the next level of quality assurance and are happy to promote our cupping app: Cropster Cup.
Why an app?
Until now, cuppings were entered on our cloud-based platform, c-sar.cropster.com. Our forms worked well, but with limitations. Problems with connectivity persisted and stable internet is not something regularly found in remote areas at origin. We also found that the input methods were limited; simple fields for values and notes do not cover the whole cupping experience. Our iPad/iPhone app offers a great opportunity to overcome these problems. First, connectivity is no longer an issue. With Cropster Cup you can register data and sync periodically - just like Roasting Intelligence. Second, in an app we can use sliders, suggest fields and swipes to capture more data faster than ever before.
What is a cupping app?
A cupping app can be everything and nothing: Which information should it capture? Is it a tool to cover detailed aspects of coffee samples to support green coffee buying decisions? Or is it a quick breakdown of roast production results to check consistency? In which environment and for whom does it have to work? What happens with the data? What do people want to analyze and report on?
Luckily, we at Cropster are proud to count many coffee business industry leaders to our clients and friends. Based on their valuable inputs we designed Cropster Cup to equally work for both production and sample cuppings. The interface allows speedy entry and analysis without the drawbacks of sample bias. Cupping scores are fully traceable. They seamlessly integrate with roasts, lots and samples in the cloud and provide organized results for reporting and analyses on different levels.
Reasonable shades of grey
Initially, Cropster Cup used colors in its UI to highlight headlines, buttons and more. It was pretty, but literature for food sensory evaluation taught us otherwise: colors give strong tasting perceptions and influence a testing score. E.g. purple indicates sweetness while green is grassy.
On top of that, a good percentage of population sees color differently - men in particular. You want to avoid that anyone on your panel being influenced by color, if at all.
In Cropster Cup we have settled with subtle shades of grey and no colors. No biased perceptions, paired with great readability.
Custom Cupping Sheets
The majority of green coffee evaluations use one of two standards: SCAA and CoE. Typically, however, roasters cup more production than sample coffee, and every roastery has a different focus in their production quality control. We have seen many custom cupping forms over the years and their design can be quite diverse. Some strive to capture profiles and consistency in their output, while others take a step further to check on acidity or balance.
What are you looking for in your roasting? With Cropster Cup you can use your own custom cupping sheets to get the information YOU care about.
Capture Intensity
Descriptors help to qualitatively describe a coffee beyond a simple score like Acidity. A coffee may have citric acidity. But how strong is that flavor then? And is it the flavor you want?
Until now, we addressed this with positive/negative notes in separate fields, but this does not say anything specifically about the intensity of the flavor and there was no way to filter or report on these notes.
With Cropster Cup, you can collect both positive/negative descriptors and intensity (low-medium-high) in one simple step. With this, we hope to make a contribution to a more accurate cup description.
Integrate and share
Where does good or bad coffee quality come from? Cupping results are only half as useful if you cannot trace them back to specific roasts, green coffee or origin. With Cropster Cup you can access results company-wide immediately. Your results can be instantly shared with anyone, whether a peer in the office on the other end of the world or the coffee seller to consolidate each other's quality perception.
Cropster Cup is the first comprehensive app to link your cuppings with each roast, sample and green inventory. This way your quality is 100% traceable and can help you buy the right coffee, roast it to perfection and share results from your account with anyone you choose.
We hope to contribute to a better cupping experience with this and make coffee quality a little more traceable.
Contact us on cup@cropster.com if you have questions or click the button below to order a trial.
