For 40 years, the term "specialty coffee" has existed. It is established, yet it needs a contemporary classification. What initially was a technical, purely sensory analysis has changed. Today, fair trade relationships and more ecologically sound production play an increasingly important role - but expectations are too high. Because in the end, it is actors who do something: a term does nothing at all.
What exactly is specialty coffee?
To define what something is, it sometimes helps to say what it is not. In the case of defining specialty coffee, that's easier. Specialty coffees are, for example, not coffee specialties - that which is often associated with exorbitantly decorated ice cream sundaes or dessert-like coffees. Specialty coffee refers exclusively to the product coffee.
Specialty coffee is first and foremost a quality characteristic that refers to the sensory quality and excellence of green coffee. Trained Q-Arabica graders undergo a challenging sensory-practical examination by the Coffee Quality Institute. In our team, Nadja Schwarz, Michel Indelicato, Benjamin Hohlmann, David Wistorf, and Philipp Schallberger have completed Q-Grader training. As of October 2025, there is a new evaluation format, the Coffee Value Assessment, which we discuss in detail here.
Determining sensory quality through cupping
When three Q-Arabica graders evaluate a coffee according to the SCA's cupping protocol, the average rating is considered the final grading of a coffee.
Before tasting, we let the coffee steep for four minutes and then break the coffee crust
Coffees are evaluated on a rating scale of 0-100. This evaluation system was developed by the SCA in 1984 and was the first 100-point-based system for coffee. It has been visually revised several times since, but the categories to be examined have hardly changed. Today, this form is the global standard for sensory evaluation of coffee.
The quality and intensity of aroma, flavor, aftertaste, acidity, body, and the balance of the various attributes are examined. It is also checked whether the respective coffee is free from sensory defects, the defects. Phenolic-medicinal, pea-like, or leather notes appear from time to time depending on quality and processing conditions.
An old and a new definition of specialty coffee
The pure focus on sensory characteristics was especially decisive in the early stages of differentiation in the coffee market. The term itself comes from Erna Knutsen, meanwhile an icon of the coffee industry, who mentioned "specialty coffee" in 1974 in the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal. Eight years later, the SCAA, the Specialty Coffee Association of America, was founded. At the center of the early SCAA were high sensory quality and - what is now a minimum standard - designation of origin.
According to the Coffee Guide, awareness of environmental issues grew in the 1970s, which gave rise to programs and certifications with a focus on ecologically sound coffee production. In the early 2000s, quality became even more important, coupled with barista training, supply chain transparency, and the boom in newly founded coffee roasteries. What is now summarized as the "third wave of coffee" meant an even stricter focus on ever higher coffee quality. However, according to the Coffee Guide, this is a misconception, because:
3rd wave coffee is an experience, specialty coffee is the product that is drunk in the process. (p.142)
A new definition of specialty coffee?
Today it is much more difficult to provide a universally valid definition of specialty coffee. The expectation of what specialty coffee should be and fulfill becomes ever higher. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that the distinction is so often made between "mass-market coffee" and "specialty coffee," and in doing so, the former is mixed not only with poorer quality but also with unfair trade practices. The alternative to this, as it sometimes seems, would be specialty coffee, and then it would have to do better in all the missed opportunities in mass-market coffee.
According to the graphic from the Coffee Guide - The Fourth Edition (2021), the chance of sustainably produced coffee increases with higher quality. "Specialized" coffee in this definition would be only more than 6% of global coffee supply.
The thing is - as is so often the case - it's neither black nor white. There are gray areas in the coffee industry too. Many "mass-market coffees" can have been produced with high ecological consciousness. And the opposite is equally true: many specialty coffees, that is, coffees with a high degree of flavor differentiation, are certainly delicious, but were produced considerably less ecologically. Or as Johanna Jacobi said to me in a podcast:
There are things you cannot taste in coffee. For example, child labor, or glyphosate.
How can we enjoy something when we know that the social and ecological conditions do not match our expectations? The question of definition has increasingly become a values discussion.
The social and ecological dimensions are today inseparable from any discussion about coffee quality. Most roasteries would probably tend to agree that coffee must convince not only sensorially, but also socially and environmentally.
An example definition
Insofar as the new concept of specialty must probably really be loaded with much more, and sustainability will be part of it. Only sustainability is a big word and maximally vague. So it then perhaps helps to separate things - as in this fictional example:
- We evaluate coffee X with 84 points and thus it is a specialty coffee according to the SCA rating scale. It has an intense aroma of blackberries, a delicate acidity, a soft body, and a long aftertaste.
- We source coffee X from a cooperative with 200 members that is certified organic and fair trade. The cooperative trains producers in their own production of organic fertilizer, finances harvests in advance with loans and low interest rates, and takes care of contemporary education for children and further training outside the coffee sector for parents.
In this example, sensory quality is clearly separated from expectations for sustainable coffee production and sustainable business practices.
Don't make a blend - don't mix
It doesn't help much to load the specialty concept so heavily that it becomes increasingly unclear. As a roastery, we have decided to only purchase specialty coffee with more than 80 points because we have above-average sensory expectations for coffee.
At our partners at 18 Conejo in Honduras, coffee is sorted by hand. The good ones in the pot, the bad ones in the bin - nothing mixed.
At the same time, we aim to dive into each coffee supply chain, understand it, and form a partnership with the producers. This way, larger projects can be tackled in the long term and together, which place social, economic, and ecological dimensions at the center and try to improve them. If we mixed these two interpretations of the specialty concept, sensory and sustainability, it would create more confusion than understanding.
Specialty coffee also for roasted coffee?
Basically, the evaluation of coffee only applies to green coffee. With precise tasting, producers can be given differentiated feedback so they can improve their post-harvest processes.
Of course, the tasting method can also be applied to coffees roasted by roasteries. However, it should be noted that these are roasted too dark in the broad market to arrive at a clear result. Through dark roasting, coffee usually loses complexity and is overlaid by roasting notes.
Juan Boillat from the roasting team roasts according to individual roast profiles for each coffee
Many roasteries refrain from roasting sensorily more complex specialty coffees because they may be targeting a different market. Because the flavor of specialty coffees can differ marginally to drastically from an average coffee. If roasteries do decide to differentiate with these coffees, many roast them rather dark because the more complex, floral, and fruity notes are too unfamiliar. Also, the elevated acidity in these coffees is rather unfamiliar and motivates many roasteries to use darker roasting. But if the fine differences are then evened out again, it would also be economically conceivable to roast "more normal" coffee.
Specialty coffee in preparation
The preparation of specialty coffee can sometimes be a bit demanding. Yes, there are increasingly more specialty coffee capsules, but in doing so, the process of preparation and the understanding of what happens during it is left out. But that is precisely what excites many people when they approach a specialty product.
The cornerstones that make for a good espresso in preparation are:
- the grind size,
- the ratio between dose and extracted coffee
- the puck preparation to avoid channeling
- and the tamping
Especially lighter roasts, which often require a longer extraction time due to lower solubility for a balanced cup, require different recipes than darker roasted coffees. As a rule, lighter roasted coffees can be ground significantly finer.
Filter coffee forgives a bit more, which is mainly due to the length of extraction. Depending on the system, this ranges from a minimum of 1:30 minutes (Aeropress) to 5 minutes (Chemex). Specialty roasteries often rely on very characteristic coffees for filter coffee, where aromas are in the foreground, and these are simply extracted. However, to extract the full dose of balance, it then requires more attention to detail.
Conclusion
The definition of what specialty coffee exactly is was set in stone with the first version of the SCA's cupping form in 1984. This tasting analyzed exclusively the sensory component of the coffee.
40 years later, 40 years more climate change, 40 years more intensification of precarious working conditions, and 40 years of intensive agriculture, we now stand at a different point.
It is understandable that a concept that brings about differentiation would eventually become loaded with even more expectations. However, the term will not solve anything, only the actors who handle the term "specialty coffee" will. In this sense, we focus on a clear separation between sensory analysis and supply chain design.
If specialty coffee is marketed in such a way that it can solve all problems, then that is not only a deception to consumers, but also to the concept itself, which was never intended for such expansion.
* More on coffee and climate change in this video
** More on the greenhouse effect in this blog
