The term “specialty coffee” has existed for 40 years. It is well-established, but it needs to be viewed in a contemporary context. What began as a technical, purely sensory analysis has changed. Today, fair trade relationships and more ecological production play an increasingly important role—but expectations are too high. Because, in the end, it is the people who take action: a term in itself does nothing.
What actually is specialty coffee?
To define what something is, it sometimes helps to say what it is not. In the case of the definition of specialty coffee, this is simpler. For example, specialty coffees are not coffee specialties—a term 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 benchmark that relates to the sensory quality and excellence of green coffee. Trained Q-Arabica Graders undergo a challenging sensory and practical examination by the Coffee Quality Institute. On our team, Nadja Schwarz, Michel Indelicato, Benjamin Hohlmann, David Wistorf, and Philipp Schallberger have completed the Q-Grader training. Starting in October 2025, there will be a new form of assessment, 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 predefined Cupping Protocol, the average score is considered the final grading of a coffee.
Before tasting, we let the coffee steep for four minutes and then break the coffee crust
Coffees are evaluated on a rating 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 been visually updated several times since then, but the categories to be examined have hardly changed. Today, the form is the global standard for evaluating coffee sensorially.
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 respective coffee is free of sensory flaws, or defects. Phenolic-medicinal, pea-like, or leathery notes appear repeatedly, depending on the quality and processing conditions.
An old and a new definition of specialty coffee
The pure focus on sensory analysis was decisive, especially 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 now a minimum standard—the designation of origin.
According to the Coffee Guide, awareness of environmental problems grew in the 1970s, which spurred programs and certifications focusing on ecological coffee production. In the early 2000s, quality became even more important, paired with training for baristas, transparency in supply chains, and the boom in newly founded coffee roasteries. What is summarized today as the “third wave of coffee” referred to the even stricter focus on ever-higher coffee quality. According to the Coffee Guide, however, this is a misconception, because:
3rd wave coffee is an experience, while specialty coffee is the product that is drunk during it. (p. 142)
A new definition of specialty coffee?
Today, it is much harder to provide a universally valid definition of specialty coffee. The demands of what specialty coffee should be and fulfill are becoming higher and higher. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that the distinction between “mass-market coffee” and “specialty coffee” is made so often, and in doing so, the former is conflated not only with lower quality but also with unfair trade practices. The alternative to this, it sometimes seems, would be specialty coffee, which then has to make up for all the missed opportunities in mass-market coffee.
According to the chart from the Coffee Guide - The Fourth Edition (2021), higher quality also increases the chance of more sustainably produced coffee. In this definition, “specialized” coffee would represent only more than 6% of the global coffee supply.
Yet, as is so often the case, nothing is black or white. There are gray areas in the coffee industry, too. Many “mass-market coffees” may have been produced with a high level of ecological awareness. And the opposite is just as true: many specialty coffees, i.e., coffees with a high degree of sensory differentiation, are surely delicious, but were produced much less ecologically. Or as Johanna Jacobi said in a podcast with me:
There are things that you cannot taste in coffee. For example, child labor or glyphosate.
How could we enjoy something if we know that the social and environmental conditions do not meet our expectations? The question of definition has increasingly become a discussion of values.
Social and ecological dimensions are now an indispensable part of any discussion about coffee quality. Most roasteries would probably agree that coffee must not only be convincing sensorially, but also socially and environmentally.
An example definition
In this respect, the new concept of specialty probably needs to be significantly more loaded, and sustainability becomes a part of it. The only thing is that sustainability is a big word and highly vague. So, perhaps it does help after all to separate things—as in this fictitious example:
- We rate Coffee X at 84 points, making it a specialty coffee according to the SCA’s scoring scale. It has an intense aroma of blackberries, a 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 production of their own organic fertilizer, pre-finances harvests with low-interest loans, and takes care of modern schooling for the children and professional development outside the coffee sector for the parents.
In this example, sensory quality is clearly separated from the requirements for sustainable coffee production and sustainable corporate management.
Don't make a blend—don't mix them
It helps very little to load the term specialty so heavily that it becomes increasingly confusing. As a roastery, we have decided to purchase only specialty coffee with more than 80 points because we have an above-average sensory expectation of coffee.
At our partners at 18 Conejo in Honduras, the coffee is sorted by hand. The good ones in the pot, the bad ones in the compost—don't mix anything.
At the same time, we aim to delve into every coffee chain, understand it, and enter into a partnership with the producers. This allows for larger projects to be tackled together in the long term, which place the social, economic, and ecological dimensions at the center and attempt to improve them. If we were to mix these two interpretations of the specialty term—sensory analysis and sustainability—it would create more confusion than understanding.
Specialty coffee for roasted coffee, too?
Basically, the evaluation of coffee applies only to green coffee. With precise tasting, producers can be given differentiated feedback so they can improve their post-harvest processes.
Of course, the tasting method can also be applied to coffees roasted by roasteries. However, it must be noted that these are often roasted too dark in the broad market to reach a clear result. Due to the dark roast, coffee generally loses complexity and is masked by roasted notes.
Juan Boillat from the roastery team roasts using individual roasting profiles for every coffee
Many roasteries avoid roasting sensorially more complex specialty coffees because they might be targeting a different market. After all, the taste of specialty coffees can differ marginally to drastically from an average coffee. If roasteries do opt for these coffees, many roast them rather dark because the more complex, floral, and fruity notes are too unfamiliar. The increased acidity in these coffees is also quite unfamiliar, motivating many roasteries to use a darker roasting style. If the fine differences are leveled out again, however, it would also be conceivable from an economic perspective to roast “more normal” coffee.
Specialty coffee in preparation
The preparation of specialty coffee can also be a bit demanding at times. Yes, there are more and more specialty coffee capsules, but the process of preparation and the understanding of what happens during it are left out. But that is precisely what excites many people when they approach a specialty product.
The cornerstones that determine a good espresso in preparation are:
- the grind size,
- the ratio between the dose amount and the extracted coffee,
- puck preparation to avoid channeling
- and tamping.
Especially lighter roasts, which often require a longer extraction time for a balanced cup due to lower solubility, require different recipes than darker roasted coffees. As a rule, lighter roasted coffees can be ground significantly finer.
Filter coffee is a bit more forgiving, which mainly has to do with the length of the extraction. Depending on the system, this ranges from at least 1:30 minutes (Aeropress) to 5 minutes (Chemex). Specialty roasteries often use very characteristic coffees for filter coffee, where aromas are in the foreground, and these are easy to extract. To extract the full load of balance, however, it requires more attention to detail.
Conclusion
The definition of what exactly specialty coffee is was set in stone with the first version of the SCA’s cupping form in 1984. This tasting analyzed exclusively the sensory component of the coffee.
40 years later, 40 years more of climate change, 40 years more of worsening precarious working conditions, and 40 years of intensive agriculture, we now stand at a different point.
It is understandable that a concept that triggers differentiation would eventually be loaded with even more expectations. However, the term itself will not solve anything—only the stakeholders who handle the term “specialty coffee” will. In this respect, we rely on a clear separation between sensory analysis and the design of the supply chain.
If specialty coffee is marketed in a way that suggests it can solve all problems, then that is not only a fraud on consumers but also on the concept itself, which was never intended for such an expansion.
* More on coffee and climate change in this video
** More on the greenhouse effect in this blog
