Cupping was pioneered by Clarence E. Bickford of San Francisco, USA during the latter half of the nineteenth century.

"Before the beginning of the twentieth century, practically all the coffees bought and sold in the US were judged for merit simply by the appearance of the green or roasted bean. Since that time, the importance of testing the drinking qualities has become generally recognized; and today every progressive coffee buyer has his sample-roasting and testing outfit with which to make painstaking cup tests. Both buyers and sellers use the cup test, the former to determine the merits of the coffee he is buying, and the latter to ascertain the proper value of the crop under consideration. Frequently, a test is made to fix the relative desirability of various growths considered as a whole, using composite samples that are supposed to give representation to an entire crop.

A marked change in the coffee business of San Francisco was brought about by the discovery that the differences in the taste of coffees could not be accurately detected from their color or from the size of the bean. To Clarence Bickford belongs the credit of having discovered the cup qualities of high-grown Central American coffees. He was employed at the time by a broker named Hockhofler, and probably did not realize what far-reaching effect his discovery would have on the future of San Francisco's coffee trade; but no other factor has contributed so much to its growth. When roasters began to examine coffees for their taste, values were of course revolutionized. Antiguas, and other high-grown coffees, that had theretofore been penalized for the small size of bean, soon brought a premium, and have been in great demand ever since. The new classification was of material assistance to the roasters in bettering their output, as blending was put on a scientific basis."

- Excerpts from All About Coffee by Ukers (1935)

In 1881, the Hills Brothers, who had set up a stall at San Francisco's Bay City Market, bought the Arabian Coffee & Spice Mills, and around 1886 adopted cup-testing as a part of their wholesale business.

"Like a wine taster, the coffee cupper slurped in an explosive burst, swirled the beverage thoughtfully in his mouth, then spit it into a nearby spittoon. This cupping ceremony survives to this day as one of the more serious - and humorous to observe - rituals of the trade."

Alfred Peet, one of the pioneers of specialty coffee, set up Peet's Coffee & Tea in 1966 in Berkeley, California. Peet hired two young women and taught them to cup (smell, taste and evaluate) coffees. "It takes a long time to understand the language the bean uses to talk to you," he told them. It would take years, he said, before they could hear that secret language. Still, they could at least convey something of this knowledge to customers. Swept up in the excitement of their newfound expertise, they sniffed, sipped, swooned and sold.

- Excerpts from Uncommon Grounds by Mark Pendergrast (1999)

Evidently, the back room cupping table and the cup-testing laboratory have been essential facilities
for buyers, wholesalers and roaster-retailers, especially those passionate about the bean, for over a century.