Coffee 101
What is speciality coffee?
It’s not a straightforward answer, and you’ll get different responses depending on who you ask.
How it’s graded
The SCA, the Specialty Coffee Association, aims to spread the knowledge of great coffee. Its grading system is what deems a coffee ‘speciality’, though the term often relates to the entire supply chain too, from processing the bean to the final brew.
An SCA-certified coffee taster (a Q grader) scores beans out of 100, and anything scoring 80 or above is speciality. Categories include fragrance and aroma, acidity, body, balance and uniformity. The higher the score, the more complex the coffee. Speciality coffee must also have a low defect count, and things like contaminants and fungus count as defects.
| Below 80 | No grading |
| 80 – 84.99 | Very good |
| 85 – 89.99 | Excellent |
| 90 – 100 | Outstanding |
From farm to cup
Every link in the chain matters:
- The farm. All great coffee starts here. Beans need to be high quality, free from defects and picked at their optimum.
- The green coffee buyer. Their highly trained palate picks up subtle flavours through cupping and deems the coffee speciality or not.
- The roaster. Their job is to find the right roast profile so all the flavour comes through when brewed.
- Your barista. Brewing your favourite coffee the right way so the full flavour profile is revealed in your cup.
- You. The person who buys a speciality cup of coffee and gets to taste its true flavour.
That’s speciality coffee in a nutshell.
Rather we made it for you?
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