What is a clean cup in coffee?

Clean cup is a cupping term used to describe coffee that is free from off-flavours, defects, and any unwanted sensory interference. It's one of the ten attributes scored on the SCA cupping form and is a fundamental requirement for specialty-grade classification.

A clean cup allows the intrinsic character of the coffee - its origin flavours, varietal character, and processing influence - to come through without interference. It's the sensory baseline from which all other attributes are evaluated. A coffee scoring 80+ points on the SCA scale but lacking cup cleanliness cannot genuinely be considered specialty grade regardless of its other qualities.

Cleanliness is achieved through careful cherry selection at harvest, well-managed fermentation and drying, rigorous defect sorting at the dry mill, and appropriate storage and handling through the supply chain. Each stage where something goes wrong - over-fermentation, mould during drying, contamination in storage - introduces flavour compounds that compromise cleanliness. When experienced cuppers describe a coffee as "clean," they're communicating that the supply chain behind it worked: nothing got in the way of the coffee expressing what it actually is.