What Makes Coffee Specialty Grade?
What makes coffee ‘specialty’ grade? Well, there are a number of different things that contribute to coffee grading, and help determine what is actually specialty grade coffee. And unless you’re somebody who’s already really into coffee, hearing the term “specialty coffee” might mean nothing to you, or even at some level be confusing - especially since it’s such a buzzword in the advertising space.
Specialty coffee isn’t just an advertising ploy or a hyped up buzzword though, in the industry it really does mean something! Coffee is graded on a 100 point scale by certified Q-Graders ( these are people who have trained and passed pretty rigorous testing specifically for tasting and analyzing coffee, think of them like professionally trained sommeliers, but instead of wine they do coffee). Anything above 80 points is considered Specialty Grade, there are other grades below 80, but quality is noticeably diminished and I’m not going to go in detail on those here.
When being graded, there are a few different things that are taken into consideration:
Bean Size - The raw coffee beans are put through screens that are uniform sizes to separate different sized beans into different lots - this makes a huge difference for roasters, as you need beans to be uniform sizes so that they roast at the same rate and the batch is consistent. If you roasted a batch of beans that were all notably different sizes, some would be over developed, and some under developed. Coffee roasting at the specialty level is very specific and done with pretty tight parameters, so having beans that are uniform in size helps consistency for every roast.
Defects - There are a number of defects that coffee can have: insect damage, sour beans, mold, broken & crushed beans, fungus, black beans, & quakers. They are split up into two categories: primary and secondary defects - primary defects being the worse of the two. A 300 gram sample of coffee needs to have no primary defects and five or less secondary defects in total in order to qualify to be specialty grade. This makes a HUGE difference in taste, having nearly no defects in beans means a much tastier final product. (If you want to know more about this in depth, you can read about it here)
Cupping (Taste and Aroma) - The coffee is then cupped and tasted. It will be roasted and analyzed by Q-Graders for a number of things:
Fragrance/aroma, Flavor, Aftertaste, Acidity, Body, Uniformity, Balance, Cleanliness, and Sweetness
All of these things factor into their grading and scoring the coffee. They then take the scores given in every category added up and subtract any defects to get the final score.
(You can find more in depth info on this here)
Having specialty grade coffee really makes a huge difference in taste and quality. Not to mention when you buy specialty grade you don’t have to think about mold or mildew like some coffee companies would have you believe. Specialty coffee is harvested and handled so well and with so much care, that you’re almost never going to find a moldy batch in a specialty roastery.
Let’s talk about price! Green specialty coffee is not cheap to buy , but it’s so worth it. The difference in quality between exchange grade and specialty grade coffee is substantial. Specialty coffee is typically priced not only based on quality, but most importers in the specialty industry are doing their best to make sure that the farms and farmers are paid adequately for their time and labor. It’s not buying the cheapest coffee and trying to hit the best margins by bargaining them down - it’s buying something that’s really good and making sure that the industry and those who pour so much time, money, and effort into growing these coffees are taken care of and compensated well for their work. That’s one big reason you can get coffee at a big box store for $10 a bag and the cheapest you’ll likely find at most specialty roasters between $15-20. Not only is there a huge difference between specialty and exchange grade coffee, but the aspect of fair pricing and valuing farmers plays a role as well.
When we say that we are specialty coffee roasters, it’s a lot more than a buzzword. We take care to purchase the highest quality coffee that we can, roast the coffee well, and let the coffee shine. There’s so much beauty in coffee, and you get out of it what you put in it! All of this goes for decaf as well… but more on that next week.
Sources:
https://perfectdailygrind.com/2024/02/cup-scores-consumers-packaging/
https://perfectdailygrind.com/2018/01/coffee-defects-how-to-avoid-them-a-producers-guide/