The term "specialty coffee" has existed for 40 years. It is well-established, but it needs a contemporary re-evaluation. What initially was a technical, purely sensory analysis has changed. Today, fair trade relations and more ecological production play an increasingly important role - but expectations are too high. Because in the end, it is actors who do something: a term does nothing at all.
What exactly is specialty coffee?
To define what something is, it sometimes helps to say what it is not. In the case of defining specialty coffee, this is simpler. Specialty coffees are, for example, not coffee specialties – the kind often associated with exorbitantly decorated ice cream sundaes or dessert-like coffees. Specialty coffee refers exclusively to the coffee product itself.
Specialty coffee is first and foremost a quality characteristic that refers to the sensory quality and goodness of green coffee. Trained Q-Arabica Graders undergo a challenging sensory-practical examination by the Coffee Quality Institute. In our team, Nadja Schwarz, Michel Indelicato, Benjamin Hohlmann, David Wistorf, and Philipp Schallberger have completed the Q-Grader training. Starting October 2025, there will be a new evaluation method, the Coffee Value Assessment, which we discuss in detail here.
Determining sensory quality through cupping
When three Q-Arabica Graders evaluate a coffee according to the SCA's prescribed Cupping Protocol, the average score is considered the final grading of a coffee.
Before tasting, we let the coffee brew for four minutes and then break the coffee crust.
Coffees are rated on a scale of 0-100. The scoring system was developed by the SCA in 1984 and was the first 100-point based system for coffee. It has since undergone several visual revisions, but the categories to be examined have hardly changed. Today, the form is the global standard for sensory evaluation of coffee.
The quality and intensity of aroma, flavor, aftertaste, acidity, body, and the balance of the various attributes are examined. It is also checked whether the coffee is free of sensory defects, the defects. Phenolic-medicinal, pea-like, or leathery notes occur again and again, depending on the quality and processing conditions.
An old and a new definition of specialty coffee
The pure focus on sensory aspects was particularly decisive in the early days of differentiation in the coffee market. The term itself comes from Erna Knutsen, now an icon of the coffee industry, who mentioned "specialty coffee" in the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal in 1974. Eight years later, the SCAA, the Specialty Coffee Association of America, was founded. At the heart of the early SCAA were high sensory quality and - what is a minimum standard today - the designation of origin.
According to the Coffee Guide, awareness of environmental problems grew in the 1970s, leading to programs and certifications focused on ecological coffee production. In the early 2000s, quality became even more important, coupled with barista training, transparency in supply chains, and the boom in newly founded coffee roasteries. What is now summarized as the "third wave of coffee" meant an even stricter focus on ever higher coffee quality. However, according to the Coffee Guide, this is a misconception, because:
3rd wave coffee is an experience, specialty coffee is the product consumed. (P.142)
A new definition of specialty coffee?
Today, it is significantly more difficult to provide a universally valid definition of specialty coffee. The demands on what specialty coffee should be and achieve are constantly increasing. Perhaps this is because the distinction between "mass-market coffee" and "specialty coffee" is so often made, with the former being associated not only with poorer quality but also with unfair trading practices. The alternative, as it sometimes appears, would be specialty coffee, which then has all the missed opportunities in mass-market coffee to do better.
According to the graphic from the Coffee Guide - The Fourth Edition (2021), with higher quality, the chance of more sustainably produced coffee also increases. "Specialized" coffee in this definition would only account for more than 6% of global coffee production.
As is often the case, it's not all black and white. There are also gray areas in the coffee industry. Many "mass-market coffees" may have been produced with high ecological awareness. And the opposite is also true: many specialty coffees, i.e., coffees with a high degree of taste differentiation, may be delicious, but were produced significantly less ecologically. Or as Johanna Jacobi said in a podcast with me:
There are things you can't taste in coffee. For example, child labor or glyphosate.
How could we enjoy something if we know that the social and ecological conditions do not meet our expectations? The question of definition has increasingly become a discussion of values.
Today, the social and ecological dimensions are indispensable in a discussion about coffee quality. The vast majority of roasters would probably tend to agree that coffee must be convincing not only sensually, but also socially and environmentally.
An example definition
In this respect, the new concept of specialty coffee must indeed be much more laden, and sustainability will become part of it. However, sustainability is a big word and maximally vague. So perhaps it does help to separate things - as in this fictitious example:
- We rate coffee X with 84 points, making it a specialty coffee according to the SCA rating scale. It has an intense aroma of blackberries, delicate acidity, a smooth body, and a long aftertaste.
- We source coffee X from a cooperative with 200 members that is organic and Fairtrade certified. The cooperative trains producers in the self-production of organic fertilizer, finances harvests with loans and low interest rates, and ensures contemporary education for children and further training outside the coffee sector for parents.
In this example, the sensory quality is clearly separated from a demand for sustainable coffee production and sustainable corporate management.
Don't blend – don't mix
It doesn't help to inflate the concept of specialty so much that it becomes increasingly confusing. As a roastery, we have decided to only purchase specialty coffee with more than 80 points because we have an above-average sensory expectation for coffee.
At our partners 18 Conejo in Honduras, the coffee is sorted by hand. The good ones in the pot, the bad ones in the crop - don't mix anything.
At the same time, we aim to delve into every coffee supply chain, understand it, and enter into partnerships with producers. In this way, larger projects that focus on and try to improve the social, economic, and ecological dimensions can be tackled in the long term and together. If we were to mix these two interpretations of the specialty concept, sensory and sustainability, it would lead to more confusion than understanding.
Specialty coffee for roasted coffee too?
Basically, the evaluation of coffee applies only to green coffee. Precise tasting can provide differentiated feedback to producers so they can improve their post-harvest processes.
Of course, the tasting method can also be applied to coffees roasted by roasters. However, it should be noted here that these are roasted too dark in the broad market to achieve a clear result. Due to the dark roast, coffee generally loses complexity and is overlaid by roast notes.
Juan Boillat from the roasting team roasts each coffee according to individual roasting profiles
Many roasters refrain from roasting more sensorially complex specialty coffees because they may be targeting a different market. This is because the taste of specialty coffees can differ marginally to drastically from an average coffee. If roasters do choose these coffees, many roast them darker because the more complex, floral, and fruity notes are too unfamiliar. The increased acidity in these coffees is also rather unfamiliar and motivates many roasters to use darker roasting profiles. If the fine differences are then leveled out again, it would, however, also be conceivable from an economic perspective to roast "more normal" coffee.
Specialty coffee in preparation
The preparation of specialty coffee can sometimes be a bit demanding. Yes, there are more and more specialty coffee capsules, but the process of preparation and the understanding of what happens are left out. However, it is precisely this that inspires many when they approach a specialty product.
The cornerstones that define a good espresso during preparation are:
- the grind size,
- the ratio between dose amount and extracted coffee
- the puck preparation to avoid channeling
- and tamping
Lighter roasts, which often require a longer extraction time for a balanced cup due to their lower solubility, need different recipes than darker roasted coffees. As a rule, lighter roasted coffees can be ground much finer.
Filter coffee is a little more forgiving, which is mainly due to the length of the extraction. This ranges from a minimum of 1:30 minutes (Aeropress) to 5 minutes (Chemex), depending on the system. Specialty roasters often rely on very characteristic coffees for filter coffee, where aromas are in the foreground, and these are easy to extract. However, to extract the full load of balance, more attention to detail is required.
Conclusion
The definition of what specialty coffee precisely is was set in stone with the first version of the SCA's Cupping Form in 1984. This tasting exclusively analyzed the sensory component of coffee.
40 years later, 40 more years of climate change, 40 more years of deteriorating precarious working conditions, and 40 years of intensive agriculture, we are now at a different point.
It is understandable that a concept that creates differentiation will eventually be laden with even more expectations. However, the term itself will solve nothing, only the actors who deal with the term "specialty coffee". In this respect, we advocate a clear separation between sensory analysis and the design of the supply chain.
If specialty coffee is marketed in such a way that it can solve all problems, then this is not only a deception of consumers but also of the concept itself, which was never intended for expansion.
* More about coffee and climate change in this video
** More about the greenhouse effect in this blog
