Coffees are scored on a 100-point scale. Coffee scores above 80 points, defined by the SCA (Specialty Coffee Association), are classified as Speciality Grade Coffee. The grading starts with the coffee farmer, and the coffee will go through a process called “cupping”, which detects how many defects the bean has. The scoring is as follows:

• 90-100 – Outstanding – Specialty
• 85-99.99 – Excellent – Specialty
• 80-84.99 – Very Good – Specialty
• < 80.0 – Below Specialty Quality – Not Specialty

Coffee Professionals always want to ensure those beans produce the perfect cup. So whether you enjoy your coffee brewed at home or barista prepared in a coffee shop, you will know you are drinking the best coffees from around the world. Speciality coffee roasters will always be needed to ensure your coffee is produced to the highest quality and that you get the best coffee.

The term “speciality coffee” was first used in 1974 by Erna Knutsen in the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal. Knutsen used speciality to describe coffee beans with the best coffee flavour produced in unique micro-climates. The Coffee Trade Journal is an excellent source for staying updated with all the tea and coffee news.

As ardent coffee drinkers, we think so! Speciality coffee has a smooth taste and delicious flavour, while regular ground coffee can be bitter and poorly quality. Tastes can differ from coffee supplier to coffee roaster and/or depending on the farmer, the coffee beans, and the coffee roasters.

Coffee flavour quality can be subjective and depends on the coffee buyer’s palette or what coffee you are used to. In our opinion, regular coffee is a sneaky way of saying low-quality.

Undoubtedly, whole-bean coffee is always the best way to buy coffee; however, not everyone owns a coffee grinder! There is nothing wrong with buying ground coffee; many customers enjoy a perfect brew with pre-ground coffee.

Speciality coffee has a shelf life of 6 months, but from the moment it is roasted to the expiry of those 6 months, the flavour and quality would have diminished incredibly.

Think of your whole-bean coffee as fresh fruit and vegetables. If you cut an apple, it will become vulnerable to the natural chemical processes that will diminish its quality.

You must invest in a good quality coffee grinder to buy whole-bean coffee. We recommend a burr grinder rather than a coffee grinder with stainless steel blades.

Whether you buy your coffee grounds or whole beans, remember to store them properly. Keep the bag sealed and stored in a dry, dark place. You want to ensure that you do not expose your freshly roasted coffee to excess oxygen and moisture so that you will enjoy your cup of speciality coffee.

You can brew your speciality coffee in many ways, and each brewing method will yield different results. Here is a list of different brewing methods:

• Espresso machine
• Cafetiere
• V60
• Aeropress
• Moka Pot (aka Stove-top)

There is no best way to brew from this list. It will all come down to your palate, and how you want to make your coffee but rest assured, the single-origin coffee you choose will make for a great coffee.

Green coffee beans describe the coffee before it is roasted in the coffee industry.

The coffee production process goes through many stages. From coffee farmers lovingly tending to and harvesting their crops to coffee professionals purchasing high-quality coffee from them. Green coffee buyers will seek out the best single-origin coffees from around the world before exporting them to coffee roasters across the globe! Coffee producers work very hard, along with their families, to ensure that year after year, their crop is sought after.

Before the coffee bean is described as green coffee, it starts its life as a cherry. When at the right stage, the coffee cherry will be harvested and inside is a seed. The seed is what we know as the coffee bean. All cherries have two coffee beans apart from a peaberry. This is when only one coffee bean is within the cherry!

The coffee beans are then processed before being exported. There are various processes the green coffee bean can take, check out our blog for more info.