CEDARVILLE, Ohio, USA – The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) water standard helps coffee taste its best, but is not widely used in most countries in the coffee belt due to cost and availability. Instead, they typically use distilled water for cupping for uniformity and availability, but this water is not recommended for cupping by coffee industry professionals.
In Third Wave Water‘s (TWW) latest white paper, they shared a brief history of water for coffee exploring the profound impact that utilizing the correct water profile can have on the overall prosperity of coffee farmers. And they demonstrate how to reach coffee labs at origin with a calibrated water profile in three case studies.
The first case study compares TWW’s calibrated water profile, the espresso profile, against distilled water. Cupping scores increased up to 1.37 points validated at origin by Honduras coffee farmer Juan Angel Welchez, La Sala Raul Moreno and Carlos Rene Guerra.
Juan Welchez explained, “Every cent added will contribute towards a stronger coffee industry and a more prosperous future for farmers like us.” These tests were also validated by three Q-graders, further proving that the easy-to-use calibrate water profile increases cupping scores and will help coffee farmers get better scores at origin.
In the second case study Long Miles Coffee founder Ben Carlson explains, “We have seen a minimum of 1 point up to 3 points higher cupping scores.” And Alex Pond, the Director of Education for the Cup of Excellence explains in the third case study the importance of water in an education setting.
Some of the key points of the white paper include:
- Calibrated water solutions for cupping at origin has largely been ignored.
- Higher scoring coffees leads to higher prices for coffee farmers.
- Third Wave Water calibrated water profiles can increase cupping scores up to 3 points.
- Using a specific target within the current SCA water profile ranges further reduce confusion and variability within the coffee supply chain.
Read the white paper here: https://wholesale.thirdwavewater.com/blogs/news/whitepaper
