In coffee history, the specialty coffee movement and its three waves form the basic understanding people have of coffee. People often contrast specialty coffee beans with commercial coffee beans as if the two were opposites, so what is the distinction and connection between them? To understand the difference between the two, we must first understand the definition of specialty coffee.

Generally speaking, people believe the difference between specialty coffee and commercial coffee beans isthat the quality is different—specialty beans must be better in quality than commercial beans, and naturally cost more, or at least that is what the market has always taught consumers.

This understanding should be based on the Specialty Coffee Association'sSCAstatement that, through their cupping system, beans scoring80points or above are specialty coffee beans, while those below80points are commercial coffee beans. But in fact, apart from competitions or samples actively submitted,SCAdoes not score beans; what we call aSCAscore is actuallySCAthe scoring method taught during training, and the scores students give according to this method. It seems thatSCAthis method of distinction still has fairly major limitations to this day.

Perhaps we should first go back to when the concept of specialty coffee was proposed to look for clues. At that time, coffee was already a commodity second only to crude oil. The C-price coffee futures on the New York Coffee Exchange were priced for delivery of arabica coffee beans from 19 countries, among which Brazilian coffee had the greatest influence on the futures price.

Specialty coffee—more precisely, the term "Specialty Coffee"—was proposed in 1978 by Ms. Erna Knutsen at the International Coffee Conference in France.

Her wording back then was, "Special geographic microclimates produce beans with unique flavor profiles." "Under unique microclimates and geographical conditions in the producing region, coffee beans with the flavor of the producing region are cultivated."

“SpecialtyThe word means "specialty" or "special product," and "Specialty Coffee" means "characteristic coffee," meaning that coffee produced in every small place should have the characteristic flavor of that region. It was only later, when translated into Chinese, that it became "specialty coffee," and the meaning changed.

This term was proposed mainly because at the time coffee had a market-designated price (the futures price), and for farmers, yield mattered more than quality. Moreover, each large producing region would mix together the coffee beans produced by all farmers, and the flavor was basically very uniform; even if there were coffee of better quality inside, it would be averaged out.

The proposal of specialty coffee was to separate out coffee beans of good quality and purchase them at above market price, thereby improving the quality of coffee beans. After removing the beans that were just making up the numbers, the local producing-region flavor could truly be reflected. This is what we often say: the producing-region flavor of Yirgacheffe coffee beans is citrus and tea-like notes. The producing-region flavor of Blue Mountain coffee beans is balance and mellow body.

In order to distinguish the two, people also call commodity beans "commercial coffee beans." But in fact, the boundary between specialty coffee beans and commercial coffee beans is very blurry, and the gap is not as distant as everyone imagines. Taking the Ethiopian producing region as an example, what people call G1 and G2 seem, by score, to be two different grades, while in the Ethiopian producing region both are listed as Q1 for export.

Of course, on some well-known beans that can stand apart, the flavor difference from some other beans is very large. At the roasted-bean level, the quality of the coffee beans is greatly improved and they also have producing-region flavor. In terms of quality, producing-region flavor characteristics, and the definition of Specialty Coffee, they can also be called specialty beans. This is actually caused by producing-region flavor, and within the same region, the same variety, the same altitude, and the same processing method, the quality is quite close.

Some friends think that "the appearance of specialty beans must be better than commercial beans." For example, many friends are suspicious of Ethiopian G1 coffee beans. Many people see that a bag of beans is uneven in size and think that other coffee beans have been mixed in, or that lower-grade coffee beans are being passed off as G1. This is also a major misunderstanding. Coffee grades are provided for green coffee traders to use in price negotiation. Buying lower-grade raw materials means you need to spend more labor costs on sorting before you can meet the requirements for supplying the market. Whether high-grade or low-grade beans, after layer upon layer of selection, the quality that appears on the market also reaches a very similar level.

So, during roasting, if you use lower-grade beans, it may mean you need to spend more time sorting. In this situation, you would actually be more willing to choose higher-grade beans directly. On the other hand, as coffee is the economic pillar of various producing countries, lower-grade beans are not commonly used for export.

Different producing regions have their own grading systems. Some countries use hardness, some use size, and Ethiopia uses the number of defective beans. In fact, no matter how high the grade of Ethiopian beans, uneven size is a normal phenomenon, because the grading of Ethiopian green beans is based on defect rate and has no requirement for bean size. Also, because Ethiopia has an extremely large number of coffee varieties, often hundreds of coffee varieties can be mixed in a single forest, locally referred to as "heirloom varieties." Since they are different varieties, it is entirely normal for the fruit they bear to be large or small.

Therefore, judging whether beans are good or bad does not have a unified standard; it is more based on each lot of beans. Coffee grade is, more than anything, only a reference for green coffee traders when purchasing raw materials. For beans considered good or bad on the market, the price at origin does not have the huge difference people imagine.

Finally, if everyone is still struggling with the concepts of specialty beans and commercial beans, then when buying coffee beans, you can buy coffee beans whose producing-region information can be traced back to an estate or a small producing area.

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