Elite Taste Team at Starbucks Test 600 Cups of Coffee Daily

Starbucks has a special elite group of coffee quality specialists called cuppers. Amanda Juris, recently named one of the best coffee tasters in the world - is one of the company's specialists. She won the U.S. Cup Tasters Championship in April.

There is a lab inside Starbucks headquarters in Seattle where 75% off all Starbucks coffee is tested before being sold at Starbucks locations. The lab is called the "cupping room." The cuppers make add sounding noises as they slurp coffee to test it. Starbucks says in a release that this is because a "quick slurp spreads coffee to taste receptors in all parts of the mouth and helps an expert identify specific aspects of a coffee's texture, flavor, acidity and sweetness."

Starbucks elite tasters will brew and sample up to 600 different coffees each day. This process is called "cupping." Leslie Wolford is another one of the coffee quality specialists at Starbucks. She tells Bloomberg it is a collaborative team effort to determine coffee quality. Take a look: