A specialty catalog is a series of commitments. Every lot on maisonalti.com is a bet that a roaster who orders it will have the experience we promised. The way we protect that bet is cupping, and we cup three times before any lot joins the catalog. This note describes what we score, what we discard, and why the third cupping is public.
First cupping · at origin, with the cooperative
The first cupping happens at the mill, in Honduras, with the cooperative that produced the lot. For our Santa Bárbara lots, that is in Trinidad. The cup is still rough: moisture is on the way down, defects have not been fully sorted. We cup here not to grade the lot but to answer a different question: is the lot worth continuing the process at specialty standards?
A lot that scores below 85 at this stage usually will not make the catalog. A lot that scores 86 or 87 goes into a candidate list. A lot that scores 88 or above is tracked individually. The decision to continue post-harvest processing (honey, red honey, natural, anaerobic) is often made in this room.
Second cupping · before dispatch from Puerto Cortés
The second cupping happens at the mill after the lot has been dry-milled, sorted, and bagged. Moisture is at target (10.5 to 11 percent), defects are at or below the specialty threshold. This is the cupping that produces the SCA score published in the catalog and in the fiche technique.
A professional panel of three cuppers scores blind. If the three scores diverge by more than two points, we re-cup. If the median score falls below the catalog threshold for the grade, the lot is downgraded or removed. We do not round up. The number on the catalog is the number that panel gave.
Third cupping · in Paris, with invited roasters
The third cupping is public. We host it in Paris, in January each year at La Caféothèque in collaboration with Gloria Montenegro and IWCA France, and on other dates by invitation. Ten to fifteen European roasters cup blind, then the lots are revealed. Each roaster scores independently, and we publish aggregate scores and anonymized tasting notes afterwards.
Why public? Because our second cupping is still our own panel, and we think a lot that scores well with us should also score well with the market we serve. If the Paris panel diverges significantly from our Honduras panel, that is information we need to carry into our next sourcing decisions. Transparency inside the house, not just at the catalog edge.
What we discard
We discard lots that cup clean but do not have a specific flavor identity. A lot that scores 85, is defect-free, but tastes like "a decent coffee" without a hook does not make the catalog. Our catalog is small (fifteen lots at a time) and each lot has to earn its slot by being specifically about something. If it is not specifically about something, a roaster has no reason to pick it over another specialty lot from a larger importer.
We also discard lots that score well but with inconsistency between cups. If three cuppers give the same lot 86, 88, and 91, the lot is probably volatile at origin and we are not confident the roaster will get the 91 cup. We would rather carry one lot that scores a flat 87 across the three cuppers than one that averages 88 with a two-point spread.
“The cupping does not make the coffee. The producer makes the coffee. The cupping decides which coffees we have the right to put a Maison Alti reference on.”
If you want to cup with us, the next session is 22 January 2027 at La Caféothèque de Paris. We are prioritising invitations for roasters who have already requested a sample or expressed interest in the 2026/2027 forward offer. Write to hello@maisonalti.com or register as a roaster to be considered.