Well, it’s not a straightforward answer and you’re likely to get different responses depending who you ask. The SCA or the Speciality Coffee Association, aim to spread the knowledge of great coffee. It’s their grading system that deems a coffee as ‘Speciality’ but it is also often related to the entire coffee supply chain too from the processing of the bean to the final brewing stage. An SCA certified coffee taster (otherwise known as Q grader) grades coffee beans using a point system out of 100, any that score 80 or above by the Q grader are defined as ‘speciality’. Categories for scoring include fragrance and aroma, acidity, body, balance and uniformity. As the score of the coffee increases so does the complexity of the coffee. Speciality coffee must also have a low defect count, things like contaminants and fungus would be considered to be a defect in this instance.

Below 80 – No grading
80 – 84.99 – Very good
85 – 89.99 – Excellent
90-100 – Outstanding

All great coffee starts at the farm where it’s grown, beans will need to be high quality, free from defects and picked at their optimum. It’s next down to the green coffee buyer. Their palate will be highly trained to pick up subtle flavours in the coffee through cupping and deem it as speciality or not. These high quality beans get passed to the roaster whose job it is to get the right roast profile out of the bean to ensure all the flavour comes through when brewed. Once the beans are roasted it’s down to your local barista to ensure they are brewing your favourite coffee in the right way. If brewed properly you’ll get all of the flavour profile revealed in your cup. Finally it’s down to you, the consumer, who buys your speciality cup of coffee to be able to taste the true flavour of coffee.

That’s speciality coffee in a nutshell.