Deja Brew: The Secret to Consistent Coffee Taste Starts with a Slurp

You've just woken up and, after you regret the sound you chose for the alarm on your phone, your first thought is likely coffee. It's a ritual most Americans enjoy, and your morning coffee is more than a delicious beverage - it's how you start your day on the right foot, a familiar taste that brings comfort. And we are proud to help ensure every cup (especially your first one) tastes exactly as you expect. But you may be asking, how do we do that?   

Like wine, where and how coffee is grown impacts its flavor and taste. We source our coffee from several different countries and procure unique coffee types. This approach allows us to continue our coffee production all year long, regardless of potential delays resulting from regular farming schedules. Our process allows us to combine unique coffee flavor profiles in a way that ensures we deliver a consistent taste to our consumers. This standard of consistency starts in our coffee labs through a process known as coffee cupping.  

Coffee cupping is an incredibly disciplined process where our own trained tasting experts - known as “coffee cuppers” - sample and evaluate characteristics of coffee. Each of our certified cuppers has undergone several years of training on how to provide expert level feedback on coffee roast degree, flavor profile, aroma, overall cup quality and more to ensure that every bag of coffee that leaves our facilities delivers the taste our consumers expect. 

“Our internal training program is critical to ensuring our products stay within their intended flavor space and that we’re differentiated in the market,” says Director, Coffee R&D Jenn Sabo.  “We have world-class cuppers working right here in our facilities, which creates a competitive advantage that translates to delivering for the consumer and the success of our brands.”  

Our Coffee R&D teams dedicate talent, time, resources and space to ensure our cupping procedures maintain our own rigorous standards. We have several cupping labs across our campuses, both at our corporate headquarters and in our manufacturing facilities. To avoid introducing any conflicting aromas or flavors, coffee cupping labs are separated by flavored and non-flavored coffees. Each lab is equipped with standardized tools used to complete the cupping process from start to finish. 

The roasted coffee for product sampling is brewed across several brewers of the same type, at the same temperature, from the same water source and for the same amount of time. Once brewing is complete, each cupper is given the identical labware and samples from the same source for tasting. 

Lest anyone get the impression that cupping is akin to sitting around with a friend luxuriously enjoying a cup of coffee, the process is unique and exacting.  

Cuppers slurp the coffee sample from a special tasting spoon. It’s a significant part of the cupping process, according to Director, Coffee R&D Becky Hostetler. “By slurping, you're adding air into the coffee to be able to distinguish and accentuate things to the taste buds.” 

This slurping style of tasting allows cuppers to release the aromatics of the coffee into the nasal cavity, while simultaneously tasting its flavor. Assessing both attributes at the same time can help cuppers determine certain aspects of the coffee itself – from level of acidity to mouthfeel to aftertaste...the list goes on. 

Technique is only one part of what coffee cuppers are trained to master. They can identify variants in the coffee they taste, even if the differences are slight. 

“Our qualified cuppers can distinguish slight nuances in characteristics of our coffee. They can tell you the difference in roast level, whether it’s dark, medium, or light. They can also identify differences in processing conditions, whether it was wet hulled or naturally processed,” Sabo explains. 

Cupper feedback is a critical step in meeting our expectations for consumer experience. It's one of the ways we hold ourselves accountable to our consumers. We don’t want our coffee to taste like anything other than...well, our coffee. 

Given that more Americans start their days at home with a cup of coffee from a Smucker brand than any other, we take our commitment to quality and delivering a consistent, trusted product very seriously. We appreciate the passion and dedication of our coffee cuppers who help ensure that our brands remain the trusted choice of consumers. 

So next time you enjoy the comfort of your morning cup, consider the journey your coffee had before it made its way to you. Or don’t. Because that’s our job, and we take pride in doing it every single day.