How to Cup Coffee for the Average Person.

Many typical coffee drinkers fit into two categories when it comes to cupping coffee: those of us who have never heard of cupping coffee and those of us who have but don't know a thing about it. Very few average coffee drinkers have ever sat through a cupping. As valuable as cuppings are, for the everyday coffee drinker I think there is a better "system" than the method employed by professional coffee cuppers. 
  
I am just an average guy who really enjoys all that coffee has to offer, from the health benefits to the sub-culture to hanging out with family and friends and just talking. What started to bother me was the more I learned about coffee, the more I heard about this thing called cupping. 

It is a way in which those in the know taste the coffee and rate it. They give points based on four different areas and assign an overall score to the coffee thus determining whether the coffee is good or bad based on its score. My problem with this is that as an average coffee drinker I don't have their trained palate and coffees they like are not always the ones I like. I think coffee is more about individual taste verses a concrete science. 
  
So what do I do with the cupping scores that I see? Well my answer is to use them as a guide but then to scrap them. As I "research" different coffees, which means buying the beans and tasting them, I have come to the conclusion that I like what I like. I like the smells of certain coffees better than others. I like the tastes of one coffee verses another. I like certain coffees with certain foods. An example would be I really like my Columbian Peaberry with desserts, but Sumatra I enjoy in the morning as a wake me up and with lunch or dinner. I have found that my friends have different tastes then I do. What I think is good they think is ok or so-so. 
  
So how do you cup a coffee? Well my advice is to pick any coffee you want to try. Buy fresh beans of course. Smell the beans. Do you like it? Now grind it. What do you smell? Now brew the coffee. How does it smell now? Take that first sip. Slurp the coffee a little. What do you think? Do you like it? What are some words that first come to your mind? Then drink the rest of the cup. Now sit and contemplate the whole experience. This will give you the best indicator of if the coffee is good or not for you. There are other things that play into coffees goodness, a key being the freshness of the roast. Just like anything agriculture the fresher it is the better.  
  
So take a risk, buy some fresh coffee beans and just sit with it through the whole process. You will discover what you like and you won't have to rely on what others say is good because for you it may not be.