What is Specialty Coffee?

Specialty coffee is coffee that has been sustained and maintained from farmer to brewer. The farmer, miller, roaster, and brewer must handle the coffee carefully to ensure that the coffee reaches its full potential. Specialty coffee has been maintained throughout the entire process. The article below explains each of the steps.




"So how do we define specialty coffee? Well, in the broadest sense we define it is as coffee that has met all the tests of survival encountered in the long journey from the coffee tree to the coffee cup. More specifically, we measure it against standards and with methods that allow us to identify coffee that has been properly cared for. For example, while it is not possible to inspect every bean from every farm at the point of harvest, or during processing or drying or shipping, it is possible to employ the standards developed by SCAA to make a meaningful judgment on the preparation of the coffee through aspect grading and to employ a standard cupping protocol to assess the quality of the cup and to discover any defects caused by poor practices that result in a loss of potential for the coffee" (SCAA.org).