A friend of mine in the coffee business complained to a programmer she knows that nobody had yet produced a useable electronic SCAA Cupping Scoresheet, so he sat down and made one… apparently in a day or two. The result is the first functional computer scoring form that I’ve found, an iPad / iPhone app available on iTunes simply called Catador, or taster in Spanish.
Catador cupping scoresheet app
Catador replicates the industry standard SCAA coffee cupping scoresheet with an easy-to-use system of sliders to rate sensory criteria and tick boxes to mark off-cups in the categories of Uniformity, Clean Cup and Sweetness. Touching the Notes line launches a virtual keyboard so that you can record your comments and total scores are tallied immediately and accurately on the right hand side in the Total Score box. So simple, and yet it works perfectly.
A scoresheet that totals itself would be worth the $4.99 investment (at the time of writing) alone, but Catador goes further to include administrative features that make it even more useful in the field. I know, since I tested it to record my scores during a cupper’s training session in Africa.
Define number and label flights, samples
From the Home screen, you can add and delete cupping flights, identifying the number of samples in each group, which are given generic alphabetic labels that can be given unique names.
Sample, flight lock changes
Notice the little picture of a lock on the left hand side of your flight or sample? To avoid mix-ups after you’ve entered your data, each sample can be individually locked to avoid accidental changes, but unlocked to make new changes. After the day’s cupping is done (or when asked to turn in your Q Grader cupping evaluation), users can also permanently lock each flight so that it cannot be changed later. The system gives you a popup warning that the operation cannot be undone.
Email scores
Taking screenshots is nifty, but no cupping scoresheet application can be fully functional in the real world unless you have some way to export the data. Catador presently includes an email function that sends scores as a text document to any email address, but I’m told that other output options, like direct to printer or an administrator download of some kind is entirely possible in the future.
Catador gets my endorsement and is something that I will encourage my students to use in Q Grader courses — hopefully a Robusta version of the cupping form coming soon!
* Robusta version now available!
Does it only allow you to score one coffee at a time or can you set up a flight? Meaning, rather than flipping between coffees to score, say Aroma, is there a capability to list all the coffees in the flight so you can score the same attribute for each at the same time?
That would be useful…and I will patiently await an Android version!
Jeff Chean