Golden Cup Certification

1. You must start with water that is without serious defect... it must have a TDS (total dissolved solids) of under 500 and be relatively neutral (not too acidic and not too alkaline). The water is tested by the Certified Brewing Technician using a TDS meter and a pH meter.
2. Your brewing equipment must be clean. All surfaces that are in contact with the coffee (brew basket, coffee holding container) must be free of stain and build up.
3. The coffee brewer must raise the temperature of the water within the 195 to 205 degree range before the water comes in contact with the grounds.
4. The time of the complete brewing cycle, from the minute the coffee first starts dripping from the brew basket to the time when the stream of coffee goes from a stream to a drip at the end of the brewing cycle, must be no longer than 5 minutes.
5. Coffee must be brewed using a ratio of between 3.25 to 4.25 ounces of ground coffee to 64 ounces of water.
6. Coffee must be ground so that when all of the other above listed specifications are met, the coffee that is brewed produces a solution that yields 18-22% solubles. This means that if you compared the weight of the ground coffee before it was brewed to the dried weight of the ground coffee after it was brewed, Golden Cup coffee will have lost 18-22% of its mass. In terms of the strength of the coffee, the solution itself will need to have 1.15% to 1.35% coffee solubles.