Specialty Grade Coffee

Not all coffee is considered specialty coffee. In order for a coffee to be classified as specialty grade, it must meet specific standards for quality and flavor.

These standards help ensure that specialty coffee represents the highest levels of care and craftsmanship throughout the entire journey; from the farm to the cup.

Quality Begins on the Farm

The path to specialty coffee starts long before the coffee is roasted. It begins with how the coffee is grown and harvested.

Farmers must carefully manage many factors that influence quality, including:

The coffee variety being grown

Soil health and climate

Elevation

Harvest timing

One of the most important steps is harvesting. On many specialty coffee farms, cherries are hand-picked, allowing workers to select only the ripest fruit. This helps prevent unripe or damaged cherries from affecting the final flavor of the coffee.

Careful Processing

After harvesting, the coffee cherries must be processed to remove the fruit and dry the beans.

This stage requires careful attention because small mistakes can introduce defects into the coffee. Farmers and mill workers must carefully control fermentation time, drying conditions, and moisture levels.

The goal is to preserve the natural qualities of the coffee while avoiding damage to the beans.

Green Coffee Evaluation

Once the coffee is fully dried and prepared for export, it is evaluated as green coffee.

Quality graders inspect the beans for physical defects such as broken beans, insect damage, or discoloration. Specialty coffee must meet strict limits on the number of defects allowed in a sample.

Beans are also evaluated for consistency in size, density, and moisture content.

If a coffee contains too many defects, it cannot be classified as specialty grade.

Cupping and Sensory Evaluation

After passing physical inspection, the coffee is evaluated through a tasting process known as cupping.

During cupping, coffee professionals taste the coffee and score it based on qualities such as:

Aroma —The scent of the coffee, often noticed before and during the first sip.

Flavor — The overall taste of the coffee, including the combination of sweetness, bitterness, acidity, and tasting notes.

Acidity — The bright, lively quality in coffee that gives it freshness and structure (not sourness).

Body — The weight or texture of the coffee on the palate, ranging from light and tea-like to rich and creamy.

Balance — How well the coffee’s flavors, acidity, and body work together without one overpowering the others.

Aftertaste — The flavors and sensations that remain on the palate after swallowing the coffee.

Using the scoring system developed by the Specialty Coffee Association, coffees are graded on a 100-point scale.

To be considered specialty coffee, a coffee must score 80 points or higher.

A Standard of Excellence

Specialty coffee represents a commitment to quality at every stage of production. From careful farming and harvesting to precise processing and evaluation, many steps must come together successfully for a coffee to reach specialty grade.

For coffee drinkers, this means that specialty coffee is not simply a label but instead reflects a level of care and craftsmanship that begins on the farm and continues all the way to the final cup.