What’s Special About Specialty Coffee?

The term "specialty coffee" refers to the highest-quality green coffee beans roasted to their greatest flavor potential by true craftspeople and then properly brewed to well-established standards. Specialty coffee is not defined by a brewing method,such as the use of an espresso machine.

SCAA Method of Coffee Grading
Three-hundred grams of properly hulled coffee beans should be sorted using screens 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18.  The coffee beans remaining in each screen is weighed and the percentage is recorded.  Since classifying 300 grams of coffee is very time consuming, 100 grams of coffee is typically used.  If you are dealing with a high grade coffee with only a few defects, use 300 grams.  If the coffee is of a lower quality with many defects, 100 grams will often suffice in a correct classification as either Below Standard Grade or Off Grade.  The coffees then must be roasted and cupped to evaluate cup characteristics.

   

Specialty Grade Green Coffee :  Specialty green coffee beans have no more than 5 full defects in 300 grams of coffee.  No primary defects are allowed.  A maximum of 5% above or below screen size indicated is tolerated.  Specialty coffee m ust possess at least one distinctive attribute in the body, flavor, aroma, or acidity.  Must be free of faults and taints.  No quakers are permitted.  Moisture content is between 9-13%.

Primary Defects

Primary Defect	Number of occurrences equal to one full defect.
Full Black	1
Full Sour	1
Pod/Cherry	1
Large Stones	2
Medium Stones	5
Large Sticks	2
Medium Sticks	5

Secondary Defects

Secondary Defects	Number of occurrences equal to one full defect
Parchment	2-3
Hull/Husk	2-3
Broken/Chipped	5
Insect Damage	2-5
Partial Black	2-3
Partial Sour	2-3
Floater	5
Shell	5
Small Stones	1
Small sticks	1
Water Damage	2-5

 The definition of specialty coffee begins at the origin of coffee, the planting of a particular varietal into a particular growing region of the world. But the definition cannot stop there. The concept of specialty includes the care given to the plant through harvest and preparation for export. Specialty coffee as green coffee can be defined as a coffee that has no defects and after roasting has a distinctive character  in the cup.  It is not only that the coffee doesn't taste bad; to be considered specialty it must be notably good. The next phase is roasting, and there is a lot of opportunity here to continually define specialty.

    Every coffee in combination with every roaster has a potential to express itself in a way that will be most satisfying for every customer. Bringing out a coffee's distinctive character is the roastmaster's
challenge. If he comes close to succeeding then it is still specialty if it started out in the green form as

Then there is the brewing  The right  ratio of  coffee to water, the right grind suited to the method and the coffee's physical characteristics, the proper water temperature and contact time, a good preparation of the coffee "bed" or "cake" are all fundamentals that must be satisfied to produce a specialty cup of coffee.Specialty coffee is, in the end, defined in the cup. It takes many steps to deliver that cup into the customers' hands. Each of those steps can uphold the classification of specialty if quality has been maintained throughout all the preceding steps.

The Buckhead Coffee Company^® is proud to be a member in good standing of the
Specialty Coffee Association of America.