Cuppings tasting game

Cup­pings is a print-it-your­self tiny cof­fee tast­ing game for two. We made it because we enjoy a good cup of cof­fee and were fas­ci­nat­ed by how peo­ple describe the aro­mas they taste. The game shares its name with a guide app we made as a side project, to help you find great cof­fee around the globe.

To play, you need two cups of the same cof­fee, two game cards and two pens. Play­ers taste their cof­fee, mark one of the aro­mas list­ed on the card which they think stands out the most, and then pro­ceed to take turns guess­ing what the oth­er play­er picked. The catch is, you’re not allowed to guess the aro­ma you chose your­self. So you need to get in the head of your play­mate, imag­in­ing what they would taste, as opposed to what you tast­ed your­self. When a play­er guess­es right, or when play­ers run out of options, the game ends.

By turn­ing an every­day activ­i­ty into some­thing game-like, peo­ple are made more aware of taste, which is a thing com­mon­ly tak­en for grant­ed. Each choice is marked on the cards, lead­ing to a kind of emer­gent sent of tast­ing notes at the end of the game, which might be fun to keep, share and dis­cuss with others.

The game is freely avail­able as a print-it-your­self PDF under a Cre­ative Com­mons license. We wel­come game adap­ta­tions for oth­er sub­stances, oth­er aro­ma lists or any­thing else play­ers might dream up. More back­ground on the project is avail­able in the announc­ing blog post and more pho­tos of the game being played are avail­able on Flickr.