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8 Flavor & tasting

Sweetness

An attribute on the SCA cupping form: the perception of sugar-like, caramelized, or fruit-derived sweetness in a coffee, with no added sugar.

  • Availability: Common

Sweetness in coffee comes from natural sugars in the cherry, caramelized during roasting and modulated by extraction. A balanced extraction lets sweetness peak; under-extraction leaves a coffee tasting sour and one-dimensional, while over-extraction buries sweetness under bitterness. Q-graders score sweetness on the SCA form as a binary 'present-and-uniform' judgment across all sample cups.

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