Coffee Tasting and Cupping: How Tasting Different Coffees Can Train Your Palate

Have you had the experience of drinking coffee and tasting something, you can’t quite place?

Something you can’t identify, that reminds you of berries or even of wine, chocolate, nuts, citrus or flowers?

If so, you have begun to realize something essential about coffee. Coffee has numerous flavors and can remind you of many things.

The more coffees you taste, the more flavors you perceive in those coffees, making coffee tasting and cupping more enjoyable. R&B Cafe Roasters takes pleasure in introducing customers to those flavors in a simple way where no coffee knowledge is needed. You just have to be a coffee lover.

What Is Coffee Cupping?

Coffee cupping is a simple way of tasting coffee. Instead of preparing each coffee as an espresso or filter coffee, several coffees are prepared in a similar way so that you can compare them more easily.

You smell the coffee, taste it, and compare what you notice in each cup.

The goal is not to find the “right” answer. It is about paying attention.

One coffee can elicit a fruity and sweet taste, while another can be chocolate and nutty. A third coffee may be bright and have a fresh taste of acidity.

These differences are more easily observed when coffees are tasted side by side.

Why Taste Different Coffees?

One of the best ways to improve your palate is simply to taste more coffee.

Imagine drinking the same coffee every day. You become familiar with it, but you don't get many chances to compare it with something completely different.

Now imagine tasting six coffees from different origins or with different processing methods.

Suddenly, you start asking questions:

• Why does this coffee taste sweeter?

• Why is this one more acidic?

• Where does that fruity flavour come from?

• Why does one coffee feel heavier than another?

• Why do two coffees made from similar beans taste so different?

These questions are exactly what make coffee tasting fun.

R&B Cafe Roasters' coffee tasting class gives guests the opportunity to taste up to six different coffees while learning how to notice aromas and flavours.

Coffee Variety Can Change the Flavour

Just like different types of apples can taste different, different coffee varieties can also have their own characteristics.

Some varieties may give you more floral or fruity notes, while others can be sweeter, more chocolatey, or have a different texture.

Of course, variety is only one part of the story. Where the coffee is grown, how it is processed and how it is roasted also play a big role.

This is why coffee can be such an interesting drink to explore.

Processing Has a Big Impact

After coffee cherries are picked, the way the beans are processed can change the final flavour in your cup.

You may have heard of washed, natural and honey processed coffees.

A natural coffee is generally dried with the fruit still around the seed. This can often create a fruitier and sweeter cup.

With washed coffee, the fruit is removed before drying. These coffees can often taste cleaner and brighter.

Honey processing sits somewhere between the two.

There are also newer and more experimental processing methods, which can create very unusual flavours.

The easiest way to understand the difference is not by reading about it, but by tasting the coffees next to each other.

Roasting Changes the Coffee Too

Even after the coffee has been grown and processed, there is still another important step: roasting.

The roaster's job is to bring out the best qualities of the green coffee.

A lighter roast may allow more of the coffee's origin and natural flavours to come through. A darker roast can create deeper roasted flavours, with notes that may remind you of chocolate, caramel or nuts.

There isn't one roast that is perfect for everyone.

It is about finding the roast that works well with that particular coffee.

At R&B Cafe Roasters, each specialty coffee lot gets its own roast profile based on the characteristics of the beans, including their origin and processing method.

How Cupping Helps You Develop Your Palate

You don't need to have a “professional” palate to start tasting coffee.

Your palate develops with practice.

The more coffees you taste, the more familiar you become with different flavours. You might not be able to identify a specific flavour immediately, and that's completely normal.

Start with simple comparisons.

For example, taste one coffee that is fruity and another that is more chocolatey. Then try two coffees from different processing methods.

After a while, you may begin to notice that a coffee smells like berries before you even taste it.

Eventually, you start remembering these flavours.

That's when coffee tasting becomes even more interesting.

Coffee Tasting Is Not About Being Right

One thing worth remembering is that tasting coffee is personal.

Two people can drink the same coffee and notice completely different things.

One person might say, “I taste red berries.”

Another might say, “It reminds me more of grapes.”

Both experiences can be valid.

The purpose of tasting is not to prove that you have the best palate. It is to become more aware of what is actually in your cup.

That's also why guided tasting classes can be helpful. Someone can show you what to look for and help you put words to the flavours you are experiencing.

Try a Coffee Tasting Class in Ljubljana

If you want to learn more about coffee by actually tasting it, there are several opportunities in Ljubljana.

At R&B Cafe Roasters, our coffee tasting class introduces guests to different coffee varieties and gives them the chance to taste up to six coffees while learning how to recognise their aromas and flavours.

Another local option is Specialty Kava Slovenia, which offers specialty coffee cup-tasting and other coffee education experiences in Ljubljana. Their cup-tasting sessions focus on learning how to taste and evaluate specialty coffee.

So if you have always wanted to understand why one coffee tastes completely different from another, a tasting class is a great place to start.

From Coffee Lover to Coffee Competitor

To some, coffee tasting becomes something more than a hobby.

It can become a skill.

Each year, the Specialty Coffee Association of Slovenia hosts a coffee tasting competition at the Vrhnika Coffee Festival. Participants of the competition are challenged to discern the many differences between coffees. The 2026 competition, titled Sensory Cup, is scheduled for September 6 at the Vrhnika Coffee Festival.

I have competed at this level before and was fortunate enough to earn the title of Slovenia's Vice Champion in 2025.

Coffee tasting at a competition really becomes a different experience than savoring your morning cup of java.

In a traditional triangulation, participants are tasked with identifying which cup has the coffee of a different varietal. Two cups will comprise the same coffee, and the other will have one coffee that is different from the other two.

The challenge the participants face is that the coffees can be very similar.

Competitors must rely on their sense of smell as well as taste, and their ability to compare and contrast.

Regular practice will show the development of one's palate.

For 2026, however, the competition will feature head-to-head sensory duels, where two tasters will compete to identify coffees before the other time adjudicator calls time.

An Exciting New Chapter

Competing or becoming a coffee professional is not the only way to enhance one's skill at coffee tasting.

A simple cup of coffee is enough to get started.

There are a lot of ways to think about coffee, and a big part of coffee tasting is simply being interested to see how many of them there can be.

From one type to the next, the many origins and ways coffee can be grown and processed yield many differences.

There's no better way to fully understand the different expressions of coffee than to brew it as much as possible.

Before long, your cup of coffee might mean a lot more than your java-needs-jona buzz.