I remember being asked this question by my soon to be employer. It was during an interview for a position within their coffee company. “What is Specialty Coffee?” To be honest, I had never heard the expression before. I think I answered something along the lines of “A coffee with caramel" in it”. After some research, I was quite embarrassed of my answer. Although I came from a management position within a well known Australian coffee franchise; Specialty Coffee was a complete mystery to me.

The widely accepted definition of specialty coffee is coffee scoring 80 points or above on the 100-point scale used on the Specialty Coffee Association Cupping form. Coffee scoring from 90–100 is graded Outstanding, coffee that scores 85–89.99 is graded Excellent, while coffee scoring 80–84.99 is graded Very Good.

This is the usual kind of explanation for what Specialty Coffee is, but I’ll expand on this a little more as it’s not just about a score when you buy specialty coffee. This is due to the chains of custody that the coffee goes through from farm to cup. There are a lot of hands involved in the production of coffee, and any can have a preserving or detrimental affect on the quality and integrity of the initial score. Here are a few.

Grower

Obviously the Growers are the first in the chain and the most important. Without due care and skill taken to grow the coffee graded as Specialty, there is no product. They follow their product from processing through to storage, checking for defects and following practices that keep quality high. Many growers around the world have perfected their art and produce some if the best coffee’s, some even garnering price tags of $200 per cup. Without the growers dedication, the specialty coffee industry would not exist.

Import / Export / Shipping

Almost always traveling by sea, coffee is shipped to ports around the world in containers. How long the coffee is on the water or left in port, can have an impact on quality. Temperature and moisture can also affect green coffee as well. Cool and dry is how coffee should be stored; so if the integrity of the container is compromised, moisture can cause mold and other defects. Time spent on a ship or in port, can be months prior to dispatch. Quarantine, paperwork, and receiving logistics can hold up cargo as well. You can only imagine the potential for spoiling a growers hard work should their coffee sit in a port in sub-tropical PNG or Sumatra for 9 months during a monsoon season. Fortunately, a well practiced logistics network can prevent these sorts of issues and ensure the coffee reaches its destination, ready for roasting.

Procurement / Roasting

Roasters will work with Green Coffee importers to find coffee’s that they wish to roast with quality being one of the greatest determining factors. Once landed, Green Coffee importers will want to sell these lots to roasters as soon as possible to maintain freshness. Warehousing the coffee is done in a way that keeps the coffee as inert as possible as green coffee may not be sold for many months. Importers will roast samples and cup coffees on arrival and throughout the warehousing to monitor quality.

Once purchased from an Importer, the coffee is held within a roasters warehouse. Some roasters will have temperature-controlled environments for this purpose but generally a space that is cool and dry is totally fine. Specialty roasters have spent countless hours refining their craft. With almost a decade of coffee experience, Mosey Coffee Roasters are no exception. Great care is taken around the roasting process and roasters are always evaluating their profiles. Moisture readings, density calculations, temperature measurements and light refractions are some of the methods roasters use to check quality and consistency of their roasts. After that, it comes down to taste.

Barista

Almost anyone can make a cup of coffee. Home machines are more common these days than ever before, and with a little knowledge of the equipment, anyone can do it. However, Specialty Coffee Barista’s are equipped with the finest equipment and knowledge and can prepare exquisite espresso based beverages and filter coffee. From dialing in the grinder, setting the coffee machine’s temperature, experimenting with extraction times and the ability to texture milk perfectly; good baristas will present coffee to their end customers with passion and precision. Many will talk about the coffee they use as if they know the farmer or roasted it themselves. Some can even rattle off blend recipes, the elevation at which coffee was grown, or the varietal of coffee plant. It’s the barista’s job to prepare the coffee to best honor the grower and allow the story to be heard and tasted.

Customer

By choosing and appreciating Specialty Coffee, the consumer is the final link in the chain. The more information customers can ingest and apply when purchasing coffee, the better the experience coffee drinkers can have. As an avid consumer of coffee myself, there is no better feeling than buying a new coffee that I haven’t tried before, really reading the information provided, and understanding what I should be looking for and why. Acidity, flavor, and body are all related to the process, the grower, the roaster, and the chains of custody. By having a better understanding of the processes involved and the possibilities of Specialty Coffee, we’ll all have a better experience and will be supporting the growers who invest so much time and effort into the coffee we love.

A score of 84 or above is great but if the coffee is not handled correctly or treated with the respect it deserves, the score is arbitrary. Keep this in mind next time you buy coffee for home or when choosing a cafe. Is the coffee specialty, and are the baristas doing their best to deliver on the promise of specialty? The choice is yours.