Anyone who has ever entered a trendy café in a big city or held a coffee package from a small roastery will most likely have encountered the term "Specialty Coffee" or – somewhat more cumbersome – "Specialty Coffee".
Most people recognize with the first sip that there is more behind the term than just another marketing buzzword: they perceive less bitterness and roast flavors in the cup. Instead, they find more intense aromas. Perhaps they taste chocolate, nuts, or even fruits. Some shy away from the unfamiliar acidity that the barista conjures into the cup when in a particularly good mood. At the same time, however, they appreciate the pleasant aftertaste.
Perhaps you are now asking yourself why the coffee tastes so different, and ultimately you come to the question: What exactly is Specialty Coffee?
Overview
- Specialty Coffee is a clearly defined quality term and not a marketing promise
- It is evaluated according to the SCA protocol, a coffee needs at least 80 points
- Aroma, flavor, sweetness, acidity profile, body, and balance are among the central evaluation criteria
- The taste is primarily developed on the farm, through precise processing, and careful roasting
- Q Graders ensure that Specialty Coffee is evaluated comparably worldwide through standardized cuppings
Content
- Definition: Specialty Coffee
- The SCA Scoresheet: What criteria are used to evaluate Specialty Coffee
-
How can a coffee even achieve 80+ points according to the SCA protocol?
- What role does the Q Grader play?
- How does Specialty Coffee differ from other terms?
- Who invented the term Specialty Coffee?
- Conclusion
The term Specialty Coffee
Let's start with a definition of Specialty Coffee:
Definition: Specialty Coffee Specialty Coffee is a coffee that meets particularly high quality standards from cultivation to processing and roasting, and achieves at least 80 out of 100 points in the sensory evaluation according to the international SCA protocol. Specialty coffees achieve a high score for aroma, flavor, aftertaste, sweetness, acidity profile, body, balance and clarity, as well as for the overall impression.
Admittedly, the definition is a bit clunky because it's formulated somewhat technically. But it provides you with three important insights:
- Specialty Coffee is a defined quality term, not marketing jargon
- A coffee can be called Specialty Coffee if it scores at least 80 points on a rating scale of 0 to 100.
- Points are awarded for clearly defined characteristics according to the SCA protocol, including aroma, flavor, sweetness, etc.
The SCA protocol is managed and further developed by the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). The SCA also determines who is even allowed to evaluate coffee according to the SCA protocol: these are so-called Q Graders, who must undertake an intensive, multi-day course every three years, consisting of three days of training and three days of examination. Anyone can become a Q Grader, but they must have a certain talent for recognizing and describing taste experiences.
The SCA Scoresheet: What criteria are used to evaluate Specialty Coffee?
Coffees are tasted in so-called cuppings. These are the coffee equivalent of wine tastings. However, cupping sessions should not be imagined as being as romantic as a tea ceremony. Equipped with cupping spoons and highly concentrated, the tasters go around a table with many small bowls: these initially contain freshly ground coffee, which is later infused with hot water and tasted. Cuppings are accompanied by loud slurping noises from the coffee professionals, which together make the cupping a strange sucking concert for outsiders. They go to all this trouble to analyze the coffees according to factors such as aroma, flavor, aftertaste, sweetness, acidity profile, body, and balance. The following table shows the ten categories according to which coffee is evaluated according to the SCA protocol.
| Category | What it's about | Typical questions |
|---|---|---|
| Aroma | Scent of the dry and wet bean | How does it smell? Floral, fruity, spicy? |
| Flavor | Taste impression during drinking | Which aromas emerge? |
| Aftertaste | Impression after swallowing | Does it linger pleasantly or does it fade away? |
| Acidity Profile | Quality of the acidity | Vibrant or sharp? Fresh or pungent? |
| Body | Mouthfeel | Creamy, silky, or thin? |
| Sweetness | Perceptible sweetness | Natural, clear, or barely present? |
| Balance | Interaction of aroma, acidity, body, and sweetness | Does everything fit together? |
| Uniformity | Consistent quality in the cups (each coffee type is brewed three times and checked for uniformity) | Are all bowls identical? |
| Clean Cup | Clarity without disturbing off-notes | Does the coffee taste clean or disturbed? |
| Overall | Overall impression | How convincing is the coffee as a whole? |
The overall impression brings all the impressions together and evaluates whether the coffee makes sense as a whole. This is probably the most subjective category, as it reflects the cupper's preference the most. Strong deductions are made for defects, for example, if a coffee tastes over-fermented, has mold notes, or develops a dry, furry mouthfeel.
To enjoy Specialty Coffee, you don't have to become an analytically skilled coffee nerd. Although fruity, complex coffees are finding more and more enthusiasts, discovering wonderful coffees still doesn't have a hint of elitism, as you might know from the wine community. But if you particularly like a coffee and want to better understand what makes it special, most of the criteria presented can help you.
How can a coffee even achieve 80+ points?
Perhaps you already suspect that a good coffee doesn't depend that much on a good espresso machine or your barista skills. Sure, a bad grinder or the wrong brewing technique can ruin your coffee cup. But the conditions for an outstanding coffee are set long before you buy your coffee beans.
The most important foundations are laid on the farm where the coffee was grown. Therefore, the names of the coffee farms take a prominent place on our coffee packaging. On the farms, the choice of variety, climatic conditions, altitude, and harvest quality determine whether the coffee even has the potential for complex aromas. The coffee farmer must think about the soil, protect the coffee trees from insect or fungal infestations, and keep an eye on the entire ecosystem. The spacing of coffee trees, which other plants they are combined with, whether there are shade trees – all of this affects the coffee harvest and quality. A good variety with the wrong altitude will not reach its full potential. And if unripe and defective coffee cherries are not sorted out after harvesting, this will later impair the coffee enjoyment.
After the coffee harvest, the coffee cherries must be processed so that the coffee beans, which are actually the seeds of the coffee cherries, can be freed from the pulp, dried, and shipped. There are various methods here that significantly influence the taste of the coffee: naturals (dry-processed coffees), washed (washed coffees), and many methods in between. Precision is key here: clean fermentation, controlled drying, regular turning of the beans. Errors lead to defects that even the most expensive portafilter machine cannot overcome.
To put it somewhat pointedly, the coffee can only be worsened at the subsequent stages of the supply and value chain. If the green coffee is exposed to high temperatures or high humidity during transport on its way to our import ports, we will notice this in the coffee cup. We understand roasting as the refinement of the coffee bean. This would falsely suggest that we could add something to the bean that was not previously in it. When roasting, we can at most destroy aromas, sweetness, and acidity if, for example, we leave the beans in the roasting drum for too long.
You have already learned that a coffee is considered Specialty Coffee as soon as it achieves more than 80 SCA points. However, as you can see in the following table, coffee can be classified much more precisely. Only a few coffees manage to exceed the 90-point mark. For these top coffees, producers can demand particularly high prices.
Coffees just below 80 points are not inherently bad; they are simply a little less complex or show one too many defects in the assessment. Coffees below 70 points are often inedible. Nevertheless, these also find their buyers: for example, in inferior instant coffees or in cheap blends, where unpleasant flavor notes are masked by the clever combination with other coffees.
| SCA Points | Description | Typical uses / Where you can find these coffees |
|---|---|---|
| < 70 | Off Grade / Rejection quality. Significant defects, foreign notes, often inedible. | Instant coffee, very cheap blends, industrial products, vending machines in offices or petrol stations. |
| 70 – 74.99 | Standard Grade / Commodity Coffee. Unstable quality, sometimes noticeable defects. | Cheap coffee from retail, wholesale goods, gastronomy focusing on cost rather than quality. |
| 75 – 79.99 | Commercial / Premium Grade. Solid mass-produced coffees without complexity. | Branded coffee from retail, capsules, classic Italian espresso blends. |
| 80+ | Entry into Specialty Coffee. Clean, flawless cup with first recognizable characteristics. | Good cafés, modern roasteries, online shops of small roasters. |
| 80.0 – 84.99 | Good to very good Specialty Quality. Clearly recognizable aromas, balanced profile, but not yet highly complex. | Specialty cafés, Third Wave roasteries, the majority of Single Origins in the premium segment. |
| 85.0 – 89.99 | High-quality specialty coffees with distinct aromatics, depth, and complexity. | Micro Lots, seasonal specialty roasts, limited releases, cafés with baristas who participate in Coffee Championships. |
| 90+ | Rare top-tier coffees, extremely complex, very clean, and available only in small quantities. | Cup of Excellence Lots, barista competitions, coffees for enthusiasts and collectors, high-quality tasting events. |
A Matter of Taste: The Role of the Q Grader
What a sommelier is to wine, a Q Grader is to coffee. Taste is debatable. But with a Q Grader, you should not argue, at least not about coffee. They are trained to taste, describe, and evaluate the various characteristics of taste (see table above). Anyone who passes the official Q-Arabica-Grader courses can call themselves a Q Grader. These bootcamp-like events consist of multi-day endurance tests with sensory examinations, defect recognition, roast aromas, triangulation, and a whole series of cuppings. The courses not only produce new Q Graders but also ensure that the various participants are calibrated with each other. This ensures that a coffee is evaluated the same way by a coffee inspector in Colombia as by a licensed taster in Switzerland.
Their work follows clear standards. Water quality, grind size, temperature, roast profile, and coffee resting time are precisely defined so that the coffee is evaluated not by circumstances, but only by its own quality. And because even professionals can have an off day, a coffee is not evaluated by just one person. Only when several scores are close together is the result considered reliable.
Q Grading has proven its worth. Coffee roasters rely on the information from coffee exporters and importers and incorporate the cupping score into their coffee selection. Coffee producers can command higher prices if they can demonstrate a high score. Perhaps you are wondering at this point what significance the Q Graders' evaluation should have for you as a home barista or coffee drinker. Personally, I would say: Everyone should have tried a coffee that scores 90 or more – just to experience what such a coffee tastes like. But in the end, trust in the roastery plays a greater role for me than the cupping score. Firstly, even a highly rated coffee can be ruined by roasting errors. Secondly, personal preferences for certain aromas or a specific mouthfeel will usually be more decisive than a few more or fewer SCA points.
What Specialty Coffee is not – Demarcation from marketing terms
Specialty Coffee is often confused or equated with all sorts of terms. Some think of hipster coffee. For others, it means organic, fair trade, direct trade, or somehow sustainable in a certain way. All of this can be true, but it doesn't have to be. Specialty Coffee is not a trend or an attitude, but primarily an objective quality level of coffee, determined by licensed coffee graders (Q Graders, see above).
In the coffee world, we encounter many marketing terms that are supposed to suggest quality, even if it is actually not or hardly present. "Premium coffee" or "Gourmet Coffee" sound great, but they are not terms that prove the quality of their coffee beans, at least not according to the standards of the SCA protocol.
Then there are terms that have become popular in the context of Specialty Coffee but are now also applied to coffees that are not "special" in the SCA sense. For example, "Single Origin," which is a coffee in packaging that comes from a very specific coffee farm (in contrast to coffee blends, where coffees from different farms, usually from different countries, are mixed together). "Microlot Coffees" are to be understood here as a special form of Single Origin. The coffee comes from a specific farm but refers to a very small, demarcated, separately harvested, and separately processed portion of the coffee production.
"Direct Trade" was also first coined by Specialty Coffee roasters, who wanted to express that by directly sourcing from coffee producers, they wanted to ensure that they, and not the intermediaries, participated in the coffee revenues.
Finally, there is some overlap with the concept of "Third Wave Coffee." Third Wave Coffee is an attempt to historically describe a new era of coffee, distinct from previous ones. In the first wave, which spanned from the emergence of the first coffee houses in the 16th century until the 1980s, coffee consumption became widely accessible. The goal was not taste, but access. In the second wave, the experience was said to have moved into focus. Exemplary representatives include Starbucks, Peet's Coffee, and Italian-inspired beverages like latte macchiato or cappuccino. Only in the third phase, the "Third Wave," was the quality of coffee supposedly brought into focus. With this term, an entire industry probably hoped to conquer the world as its predecessors in the first and second waves had done. And although Specialty Coffee has indeed gained significant market share in recent decades, it is not unfair to still call it a niche.
Who invented it? – The Story of Erna Knutsen
The story of Specialty Coffee doesn't begin in a trendy cafe, but in an unassuming office in San Francisco. There, in the 1970s, a woman named Erna Knutsen worked, who later became known as a pioneer of the term. She was one of the few people in the trade who understood that individual small lots from specific regions could have a completely different flavor profile than the large, anonymous blends that were common at the time. Erna wanted to highlight these unique characteristics and, in an article for the Tea and Coffee Trade Journal, she called such coffees "Specialty Coffee." The term was simple but radical enough to set an entire industry in motion.
Knutsen's idea was essentially an invitation. She urged traders to stop seeing coffee merely as a commodity, but as an agricultural product with character. Small lots, carefully harvested and traded individually, were to be given a platform. Initially, it was a niche for the curious and a few adventurers willing to break new ground. But from this niche grew a movement that sparked many innovations in coffee production, roasting, and brewing, and forever changed the coffee market.
Today, Specialty Coffee is a global standard. The SCA manages the protocols, Q Graders ensure reliable evaluations, and countless roasteries work to showcase the potential of these special coffees. But the origin remains the same. A woman who had the courage to take the unique characteristics of small lots seriously, thereby creating a vocabulary that continues to shape the coffee world today.
Conclusion – Specialty Coffee is more than just a score
The unique flavors of Specialty Coffee are no accident, nor are they merely a gift of nature. They are the result of a long chain of decisions that are noticeable in the cup. Much of it starts with the varietal. Some varieties bring fruity notes, others seem more nutty, while still others almost resemble tea. Added to this are the altitude and microclimate, which ensure that the cherries ripen more slowly and develop greater complexity. Farmers usually work with a clear plan on how to cultivate their plots, which shade trees to use, and how to keep the soil healthy. This creates flavor profiles that later hold up in cupping.
Processing has an equally significant influence. Dry-processed, washed, honey, or fermented – each method steers the flavor in its own direction. A cleanly processed, washed coffee often tastes clear and precise. A dry-processed coffee (a natural), on the other hand, can appear intensely fruity, sometimes almost like a dessert. In Specialty Coffee, every drying phase is controlled, every fermentation monitored, and every bean defect sorted out. This creates the clarity that you later feel in your mouth, when the aromas don't fight each other, but work together.
Finally, roasting determines whether these aromas become visible or disappear. Most Specialty Coffee roasteries roast lighter and more precisely, so that the individual components are not burned, but emphasized. The best roasts almost act as a translation of the work on the farm. And only at the very end does your preparation come into play. A good specialty coffee forgives fewer mistakes, but rewards even more strongly when everything is right. Then, depending on the coffee quality, the cup suddenly tastes like peach, grapefruit, or dark chocolate, without any sugar or syrup involved.
