How did the Mandheling purchase help define specialty coffee?

Erna Knutsen first used the term specialty coffee in 1974 in the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, describing beans with unique flavors shaped by special microclimates. She entered the coffee trade at forty and made her name by buying an entire container of Mandheling in a single move. She later founded Knutsen Coffee, Ltd and helped establish the Specialty Coffee Association of America.

At the time the phrase had no fixed definition. That changed in 2009, when the Specialty Coffee Association of America set objective standards for green coffee beans, requiring a cupping score of at least 80 under its system. Only then did specialty coffee become a measurable industry category, turning one idea into a quantifiable benchmark.

Behind every single-origin coffee that captivates us stands a key figure who changed the course of the industry. In 1974, Erna Knutsen first proposed the concept of Specialty Coffee in the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, giving recognition to unique flavor beans nurtured by special microclimates. She only formally entered the coffee trade at the age of forty, yet with astonishing taste memory and cupping talent, she rose to fame by buying an entire container of Mandheling in one stroke. Thereafter she founded Knutsen coffee, Ltd, participated in the establishment of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, and repeatedly won the industry's highest honors. This article takes you through the complete journey of this godmother of specialty coffee, from her childhood inside the Arctic Circle to her retirement at 93, to understand how specialty coffee evolved from a single idea into a quantifiable industry standard.

Whenever an industry reaches a deadlock, a key figure often steps forward to make the stalled gears mesh and turn again, or even shatter the existing ceiling entirely. These people exert influence at their respective moments; without them, those gears might still be off track today. The coffee world is no different—Angelo Moriondo, who invented the espresso machine and let the world drink Espresso every day; Mrs. Melitta, who made drip coffee clearer; and the protagonist Front Street is telling you about today, the pivotal godmother of the specialty coffee field, Erna Knutsen.

What exactly is specialty coffee?

Many people mistakenly believe specialty coffee is a professional term used within the industry to refer to a certain category of coffee. This is not the case—specialty coffee is a concept, originally written in English as Specialty Coffee.

In 1974, Ms. Erna Knutsen first put forward this idea in the monthly Tea & Coffee Trade Journal: coffee beans with unique flavors produced by special geographical conditions and microclimates. This was the original formulation of Specialty Coffee.

Strictly speaking, specialty coffee had no clear definition at the time. It was not until 2009 that the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) built on this to establish relatively scientific and objective standards for green coffee beans, namely a cupping score of no less than 80 under the SCAA system. Only then did specialty coffee acquire a quantifiable attribute definition. It can be said that every delicious single-origin coffee we drink today would not exist without this lady's contribution. And the root of her proposing this theory lies in her deep love for coffee.

Who is Erna Knutsen?

Ms. Erna Knutsen was born in 1922 inside the Arctic Circle in Norway, and at the age of five her family moved to New York, USA. When her mother ground coffee beans at home, that alluring aroma always deeply attracted her as a young child, leaving her with an indelible memory of fresh coffee. However, in her youth she did not immediately enter the coffee industry, but first made a living in other fields.

Erna Knutsen (1921—2018).

It was not until 1968, when she was just over forty, that she joined a coffee trading company called B.C. Ireland, serving as both secretary and buyer, and formally entered the coffee field. Unfortunately, this coincided with the 1960s and 1970s, when American society was far less free and equal than it is today; racial and gender discrimination were common in every industry, and the coffee circle was no exception. It was generally believed that this was not a trade women should enter. Erna was barred from the cupping room and could not observe the sample roasting process. Therefore, in her early years in the coffee circle, she had no opportunity to fully display her talents.

She became famous in one battle

Then one day, by a stroke of luck, she tasted Mandheling that had been introduced to the United States for the first time. Mandheling's distinctive flavor deeply shocked her, so she immediately made a decisive move and bought an entire container of Mandheling green beans, selling them all within just over a month as promised. Because the flavor accuracy of the cupping reports she provided was extremely high, she not only won unanimous praise from clients and became famous in the industry overnight, but also successfully broke through her career bottleneck, no longer having to let her talents go unused due to discrimination.

Ms. Knutsen not only possessed extraordinary olfactory and gustatory discrimination, but her flavor-memory was even more astonishing. In order to introduce better-quality Arabica coffee to more consumers, she began systematically studying coffee cupping to improve her professional skills. At that time she developed a strong interest in imported coffees from different origins and kept exploring and researching, but she soon discovered a serious flaw.

She noticed that no matter which origin or supplier, the quality of the beans supplied was never stable—one batch of coffee tasted excellent, while the next batch turned into the exact opposite flavor. Only after tracing it to the source did she learn that the root of the problem lay in the buying and selling price of the coffee beans.

The birth of specialty coffee

At that time, to buy coffee beans from farmers, one had to go through layers of middlemen in a "twisting and turning" process. In order to pocket the price difference, middlemen kept squeezing the purchase price of coffee cherries. The coffee beans that farmers worked so hard to grow could only be bought at extremely low prices. When income was out of proportion to effort, farmers had to put in more to maintain a basic income. So against this backdrop, farmers no longer limited their harvesting of coffee cherries to ripe red fruit; as long as it grew during the harvest season, whether raw or ripe, good or bad, it was all picked together! After all, "donkeys and horses," "big and small, thin and fat," "old, weak, sick and disabled" all fetched the same price—so "why should I pursue quality?"

Therefore, in order to solve the problem at its root, Ms. Erna Knutsen published the concept of "specialty coffee" in the monthly journal in 1974, and for several years after its publication devoted herself wholeheartedly to spreading the concept, helping others understand through sharing exactly what form a cup of coffee takes from seed to cup. Her passion for coffee earned her a great many honors, and because of coffee she visited producing regions everywhere and befriended growers in different countries, origins and estates. In this way, she also gained a rather lofty position in the coffee market.

By 1982, she was one of the organizers who established the Specialty Coffee Association of America. Because there were few people at the beginning, she also served as one of the initial members and served twice on the board of directors. She not only served as a director of the Pacific Coast Coffee Association, but was also the only woman ever invited to participate in the "International Coffee Symposium."

In 1985, Ms. Knutsen formally founded her own coffee trading company, Knutsen coffee, Ltd, specializing in purchasing green beans of specialty grade and above from around the world, spanning dozens of countries and producing regions. By 1988, at the age of 65, she had already achieved both fame and fortune. In the following years, she successively won many major awards:

In 1991, she received the first Outstanding Contribution to the Coffee Industry Award issued by the SCAA; in 1994, she received the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal Woman of the Year Award; in 1999, the SCAA issued her the Best International Specialty Coffee Promotion Award; in 2002, she received the first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award issued by the SCAA; and in 2014, she again received the title of Founder of the Specialty Coffee Industry issued by the SCAA. That was also the year she announced her retirement at the age of 93, and Ms. Knutsen was honored at the SCAA opening ceremony.

It can be seen that her promotion of specialty coffee, like that of great figures in other industries, was an extraordinary achievement. At the end of this article, Front Street also quotes a sentence Ms. Knutsen said in an interview as a conclusion:

“coffee gives me the wonder life”

"Coffee, let us have no regrets in this life."

- END - Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee), No. 10 Bao'an Qian Street, Yandun Road, Dongshankou, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.