What is a Specialty Coffee?

What is a specialty coffee and what separates it from your traditional commercial coffee? 

The Specialty Coffee Association defines it as:

“The term ‘specialty coffee’ refers to the highest quality green coffee beans roasted to their greatest flavor potential.” We'll talk about commercial grade coffees first and then jump into the difference between these two types of coffee. 

Commercial grade coffees can typically be found in your local supermarket or bought at your largest chain coffee companies. If you're a coffee connoisseur, the issue with these commercial grade coffees are that there are many defect beans found within them which can lead to a sour, bitter, extremely acidic, or dissatisfied taste. The growing and harvesting process is not well controlled and typically done by machines. Growing conditions, altitudes, temperatures, and machine processing all can have a great impact on the taste and quality of a coffee bean but with commercial coffees, they aren't well taken into consideration. This all leads to a subpar coffee bean which severely affects the taste and quality. Further, most commercial coffees only include a good until date on the packaging. This really isn't a great measure to look at in coffee because it actually begins to lose its flavor and become stale around four weeks after being roasted. We have no idea how old these coffees are or just how stale they may be from this information. The majority of coffee drinkers won't notice the quality because they'll add cream, sugar, or syrups which really hides the taste of the end product. That's ok if you enjoy those additions but the large coffee companies understand this. It's all about volume and sales and not too much care goes into the quality of the end product. Commercial coffee makes up the largest share of the products consumers buy.

A specialty coffee goes through an entirely different growing, harvesting, processing, drying, and packaging process. Most of it done with care from the beginning to the end by niche farmers and coffee roasters. There's a scale to help rate these coffees as they score 80 or above on a 100 point scale. These beans must be rated by a certified coffee taster (SCAA) or a licensed Q Grader (CQI) to be considered a specialty coffee. Typically these coffees are grown at high altitudes, in high quality soil, by farmers who genuinely care about the quality of the beans. When the fruits are ready to be harvested, they're usually picked at the perfect time by hand with the spoiled or defected fruit being placed aside. When the beans are ready to be dried, they aren't put into a mechanical dryer as commercial grade coffees would be. They're usually sun dried on raised beds which can be referred to as the dry method. A good majority of African coffees are processed this way. 

They may also go thru a washed method which involves stripping off the pulp of the coffee fruit within days of it being picked. Beans are then washed with water and fermented to help develop it's flavor and body, then put out to dry naturally. Wet hulled is another popular washing method for processing specialty coffees. This is very similar to the washed method in that the beans are pulped, fermented, and then washed. You'll typically see this processing method in your Indonesian and Sumatran coffees. 

The last popular method is honey processing. These beans are individually picked, have their skins and pulp removed like the other washed methods, but then dried without removing the outer layer or mucilage. The mucilage can have a sweet flavor and so some farmers use this method to develop the special flavors that a honey processed coffee can include. This is a very popular processing method for Central American coffees. 

Once the beans are grown and processed, they are ready to be bought by specialty coffee buyers for sale to the market. After a consumer buys a specialty coffee, it's then roasted fresh. Most specialty coffees will include a "Roasted On" date so the consumer understands when it was cooked. This really makes a difference because the best flavors typically come within 3-7 days after the coffee has been roasted. It's then packaged with care within quality packaging to ensure the coffee bean isn't exposed to oxygen.

Here at Mindo Cafe, this is a main focus. To bring a quality, delicious, specialty coffee to our customers. We only source specialty coffees rated 85 or higher which falls into the excellent and outstanding rating categories. Once an order is placed, we'll roast the coffee fresh for you and package it with care. During the shipping and delivery process, the roasted beans will develop its flavor so that when it arrives, it's as fresh and delicious as can be!