¿What is a specialty cofee?

Specialty coffee is more than a movement, than a product, almost a philosophy of how to treat coffee in the different processes that lead to a cup. Once you try Specialty coffee there is no going back… You will never go back to commercial coffee. Then don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The main problem is that there is no globally accepted definition of what specialty coffee is. And there are no official regulatory entities, outside of some associations, that certify it.

When you buy an organic, ecological coffee in Spain, there is a whole network of institutions and people in charge of certifying that this product has been produced under the ecological or organic production standards. In the case of specialty coffee, this is not the case, and this is the main weakness of specialty coffee, which is one thing for one person and another for others.

On the Jocutla page, he gives us the best definition, at least the one I agree with the most, of the term specialty coffee:

I would add that these standards are a suitable grind for the preparation just moments before making the coffee, with a correct treatment of the coffee for the method with which the coffee is to be infused. Infusioners offer us a somewhat more technical definition of specialty coffee:

Have a score of more than 80/100 points according to an international system for quality evaluation. This score is given by a Q Grader or certified taster based on SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) standards.

In any case, for me, specialty coffee has to be a coffee taken care of down to the last detail in the entire process that leads to a cup of coffee because a well-roasted specialty coffee is useless if it is not ground properly for the coffee pot to be used, for example.

WHAT IS SCA IN SPECIALTY COFFEE?

The SCA, Association of Special Coffees in Spanish, is an association that emerged in 2017, not that long ago.

It is the product of the merger of two associations: the SCAE (Specialty Coffee Association of Europe) and the SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America). The Specialty Coffee Association is the one that regulates everything related to specialty coffee. The SCA score is based on the absence of defects in the green coffee beans.

MAINLY, THE COFFEE MUST MEET THE FOLLOWING STANDARDS FOR SPECIALTY COFFEE:

The coffee bean must not have any category 1 defect: black bean, sour or vinegar bean, dry cherry, fungus, foreign matter and beans with severe defects.

A maximum of 5 category 2 defects are allowed: broken, immature, wrinkled, floating, shelled, parchment, shell or pulp, crystallized, discolored or streaked, crushed, or spongy coffee beans. The sample to obtain these defects must be 350 grams.

When grading specialty coffee, the light level above the table should be full spectrum and at least 4000 Kelvin (K)/1200 Lux (lx)/120 foot candles (fc).

Specialty coffee grading must be done on a table of at least 0.6096 m2 (2ft2), on a black grading mat of at least the same size.

The coffee beans must have a humidity less than 0.70aw, tremendous isn’t it?

As you can see, everything is very technical, but specialty coffee, at least in my opinion, is something more than that.

For the coffee that reaches your cup to be an authentic specialty coffee, it must meet several criteria that we are going to talk about below.

THE ORIGIN AND FORM OF COLLECTION OF SPECIALTY COFFEE.

For a coffee to be considered a specialty coffee by a taster, it requires a lot of work and knowledge on the part of the farmer who grows it.

The origin of the coffee matters, the variety of the coffee is relevant, and the growing area is also important.

WHY IS THE TYPE OF COFFEE BEAN IMPORTANT?

To talk about the type of coffee bean, it is appropriate to talk about the difference between the two great families of coffee: Robusta and Arabica.

Around 70% of the coffee production is Arabica and 30% Robusta, which are the two major species of coffee trees in commercial use. There would remain a residual percentage of Liberica’s production, but this is another story.

These are the main differences between these two types of coffee that, as you can see, clearly favor Arabica coffee in terms of quality.

It goes without saying that when we talk about a specialty coffee it is usually 100% Arabica or a blend with a huge percentage of Arabica.

SEEDS AND SOWING OF SPECIALTY COFFEE.

The care begins from the moment the seed is chosen. You must have your traceability to know which substrates to use.

Additionally, the coffee grower must recreate the most suitable sun and shade conditions, which is why the coffee plantations of this type of coffee are planted under the shade of other plants.

Likewise, the number of coffee trees that can be planted in an area will depend on the climate, soil conditions and the variety of the coffee tree.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE COFFEE TREE IN SPECIALTY COFFEE

Coffee growers must monitor soil nutrition, eradicate weeds and be very careful to prevent and detect diseases and fungi in plants.

It goes without saying that when we talk about a specialty coffee it is usually 100% Arabica or a blend with a huge percentage of Arabica.

SEEDS AND SOWING OF SPECIALTY COFFEE.

The care begins from the moment the seed is chosen.

You must have your traceability to know which substrates to use.

Additionally, the coffee grower must recreate the most suitable sun and shade conditions, which is why the coffee plantations of this type of coffee are planted under the shade of other plants.

Likewise, the number of coffee trees that can be planted in an area will depend on the climate, soil conditions and the variety of the coffee tree.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE COFFEE TREE IN SPECIALTY COFFEE

Coffee growers must monitor soil nutrition, eradicate weeds and be very careful to prevent and detect diseases and fungi in plants.

A BRIEF REFLECTION ON INDUSTRIAL COFFEE VERSUS SPECIALTY COFFEE.

Until a few years ago, coffee was considered by many to be a commodity, a commercial product.

Basic products are known as commodities, those products that are intended for commercial use, and whose most relevant characteristic is that they do not have any added value, are unprocessed or do not have any characteristic that differentiates them with respect to other products. Other products that we find in the market, for this reason they are used as raw materials to make other goods.

If coffee was seen as a commodity, the business model was clearly established. It still is for the big coffee brands.

The Coffee was a purely speculative product. The more production and lower price, the more profit regardless of the quality that is neither valued nor rewarded for offering it.

Under this concept, quality had no place, when harvesting the fruit from the plant, both red and green cherries were mixed, without taking into account that underripe or overripe cherries add a bitter taste to what is the final product.

The collection is carried out by machines in farms in the sun, in which quality is not prioritized at all.

Neither are elements valued, such as growing in the shade, which favors the quality of the coffee by doing without herbicides and chemical pesticides.

In addition to not attacking the fauna and flora where this type of coffee crop is used.

The preferred model of industrial coffee is cultivation in the sun and mechanized since it reduces costs.

And this was essentially the type of coffee that made its way into our cups.

As a reaction to all this way of treating coffee, the specialty coffee movement arose, which is a true philosophy of how coffee was related to enjoy its quality.

SPECIALTY COFFEE ITS ROASTED TO EACH GRAIN AND THE COFFEE IS ALWAYS FRESH.

But it is not enough to produce quality coffee, on the way to your cup it must be well treated and well roasted.

Roasting coffee may seem easy, but nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone can do it by putting a few kilos of coffee in a machine, but roasting a coffee well implies a great responsibility since the roaster must extract all the aromas and characteristics of the coffee. That coffee without going overboard or falling short.

Doing this job well requires years of learning and why not say it some intuition.

Also, another fundamental element to talk about a specialty coffee is that the coffee that reaches your cup must come from freshly roasted coffee. If many days go by after being roasted, the beans lose much of their aroma and flavor.

Coffee is not a stored product, rather the opposite, therefore specialty coffee must be fresh coffee.

A GOOD BARIST ENHANCES A SPECIALTY COFFEE.

An anti-barista, if you’ll pardon the word, kills any good specialty coffee.

The responsibility of the barista is enormous, he is in charge of preparing the coffee from the ground to the preparation of the infusion in the way that it must be treated so that all the aroma and flavor reaches a cup in a restaurant.

The correct relationship of coffee and water, ratio, the appropriate grind for the preparation method and the physical characteristics of the coffee. The water temperature and contact time according to the method of preparation.

In short, a good preparation of coffee.

Its mixture with milk if the client demands it, are all the fundamentals that must be satisfied to produce a cup of specialty coffee. It is useless to buy the best specialty coffee if it is not treated properly afterwards.

It takes a tremendous amount of effort to put a cup of specialty coffee in the hands of the consumer.

Each of these steps can jeopardize the specialty classification, if the quality has not been maintained through all the previous stages, if something fails you are not giving a specialty coffee to your customer.

AN UNDERSTANDING AND RECEPTIVE CONSUMER TO SPECIALTY COFFEE.

For me, the consumer is part of the specialty coffee process.

It is our responsibility as consumers who love coffee to learn to appreciate the work of all those who have participated in the creation of the drink that we are about to drink.

Undoubtedly, the consumer must enjoy his coffee, but just as a little education is not a bad thing to enjoy music or art, it is not bad to enjoy a great coffee either.

So let’s quarantine prejudices that prevent us from enjoying a good coffee, and yes friend, there are great coffees that are not espressos, just like there are great espressos, let yourself go and you will discover this fantastic world of coffee.

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POINTS OF THE SPECIALTY COFFEE ASSOCIATION, SCA STANDARD, BY WHICH A SPECIALTY COFFEE IS JUDGED

SCENT/FRAGANCE

Fragrance is the smell given off by ground coffee that is still dry, while aroma is the smell of coffee infused with water.

FLAVOUR

It is the main attribute of a coffee, and goes from the aroma and acidity to the aftertaste perceived together by the tongue and the nose.

AFTERTASTE

It refers to the flavor that coffee leaves on the palate after tasting it (or spitting it out if you are in a tasting).

ACIDITY

It is perceived in the first sip of coffee and is characterized by a vibrant and fresh flavor typical of a fruit like coffee, as opposed to a sour and unpleasant taste.

In general, natural coffees have more body and fruity notes because the coffee beans are dried inside the shell. While coffees that have followed a washed process have more acidic flavors and lighter bodies.

BODY

It refers to the texture of the coffee in our mouth, especially when it is between the tongue and the upper part of the mouth.

The texture in the mouth depends, to a large extent, on the type of coffee maker and the sediments dragged from the ground coffee during the infusion.

French press, for example, gives a leathery mouthfeel, while coffee brewed using the filter method has a lighter body.

BALANCE

It reveals how flavour, aftertaste, acidity and body complement or oppose each other.

SWEETNESS

It refers to the full and pleasant flavor of coffee as well as its sweet notes due to the presence of carbohydrates, in contrast to the bitter and astringent taste of bad coffee.

CLEAN CUP

It occurs when there are no negative impressions from the first sip to the aftertaste.

Uniformity.

It manifests the consistent flavor of all cups of coffee tasted from a coffee sample during cupping.

GENERAL

It reflects the overall score of the cafe.

A WARNING AND FINAL THOUGHTS ON SPECIALTY COFFEE

If you jump on the bandwagon of specialty coffee, it will be difficult for you to go back to industrial coffee, it will never satisfy you, but you will gain in the quality of the coffee you drink.

Specialty coffee offers you a philosophy of dealing with coffee that is respectful of it from the coffee grower, through the master roaster, the skill of the barista, and your effort to know all the work and love of coffee necessary for a cup of coffee reaches your hands to be enjoyed and savored.