I have written many times about what specialty coffee is, and many professionals agree on the same point, specialty coffee is one that maintains exceptionally high quality throughout its production chain, from when it is planted to when it is picked. , from when it is processed and dried until it is exported, from when it is roasted until it is packaged and sold, from when the drink is well extracted until it is served... we agree that specialty coffee It is the one for which all its traceability is known and there is exceptional transparency and quality behind it. But, within specialty coffee from 80 points to 100 points all coffees are specialty, and if we really compare a coffee with 80 points and a coffee with 90+ there is an abysmal difference, not to mention the difference that there would be after being roasted, since it is a challenge, for example, to buy a green coffee with 85 points and then maintain that score or raise it after roasting it.
Commercial coffee has done too much harm to the consumer, both culturally and health-wise. It has made people by definition consider coffee as a product that is bitter, with a lot of body, that should be consumed at "100Cº" and that is only good for a morning caffeine shot to cope with the day-to-day routine. . Unfortunately this has been the case for hundreds of years and continues to be the case today. Why? Well, simple, simply for money, like everything in this life. It is easier to take a species of coffea canephora that produces twice as much, is more resistant to diseases, pests and adverse weather conditions than coffea arabica, make a mediocre selection of the harvest, process it and export it in any way and then at the time of roast it, give it a practically burnt profile so that quality defects are not noticeable and then mix it with a low percentage of coffee arabica to give it marketing (not to mention roasted, roasted with sugar) and over time make believe People think that coffee just naturally tastes that way. There are people who don't even know that it comes from a plant and I don't blame them for that, no one is born with absolute knowledge of everything, and even more so when they are deceived.
Well, having said that, now specialty coffee comes into play, the coffee that is going to change the market and that is going to stand up to commercial coffee, the coffee that is made by professional baristas, who are, to compare it with another profession, something similar to a wine sommelier but in this case the product is coffee. A green coffee classification comes into play and a system established by the SCA (Specialty Coffee Association) which determines that coffees are scored out of 100 and those that have a score of 80 or higher are considered specialty.
We need to define a little more what a specialty coffee is, a specialty coffee, that is, a coffee arabica of 80 points or more, is one that, apart from everything mentioned above, has a pleasant, balanced sensory profile, sweet, sour, fruity, chocolatey etc, basically an 80 point specialty coffee, it is a coffee as the real taste of a coffee should really be. We have gone from taking a product that has been totally mistreated, manipulated and deceived over hundreds of years to calling specialty coffee a product that tastes and has a quality that it should have always had. And we call that specialty coffee?
So today's tomatoes that are perfectly round, red and tasteless or strawberries, or strawberries, that you eat and they taste like chemicals, water and lack flavor, we got used to them for about 50 - 100 years and Then in the future when we try a real tomato, fleshy, with an irregular shape and irregular color and that really tastes like a real tomato, are we going to call it a specialty tomato?
Precisely that point is what I want to get to, and this happens absolutely with any food product today (hence allergies, intolerances, etc.), but I don't want to deviate from the topic. What I mean is that an 80 point specialty coffee is an authentic, real coffee, like that sweet, slightly acidic and fleshy tomato that doesn't taste like just water, a coffee which should have always tasted like this. , and in many places it is being sold as something totally exceptional.
This does not take away from the fact that there is work and effort behind that 80 point coffee, don't get me wrong, but I think that within that range of 80 to 100 perhaps we should work on making a more detailed differentiation and at a colloquial level above all. , from the 80 point, 85 point, 90 point and 90+ coffees. In fact, this differentiation exists, from 80 to 85 are very good, from 85 to 90 are excellent, and from 90+ are outstanding. The fact is that this differentiation does not apply at a colloquial and everyday level, not even among professionals.
I think that if we do not make a difference in vocabulary between a coffee of 80, 85, 90 and 90+ we are making a mistake and perhaps we are not really valuing what specialty coffee is. The name itself indicates it, specialty coffee is special, it is a product that stands out from the rest, even from other high quality ones. I think that selling an 80% coffee the same as a 90% coffee is a lack of consideration for the work and effort of the production chain. And I really believe that calling them by the same name without differentiating also makes the same professionals in the sector opt for one of 80 more than one of 90, in total, it is already a specialty, right?
I am one of the people who thinks that having healthy competition is very positive for any industry, that provoking and creating a challenge makes the wheel turn forward. If we do not demand more education, quality, transparency, competitiveness and new challenges, there will come a time when we will hit the ceiling.
There are many cafes, restaurants and other businesses that are beginning to be interested in specialty coffee, but 90% of them do not have the necessary training and when they enter the world of specialty coffee, everything seems expensive and they end up opening businesses without training and with coffees that cost 80p and are worth less than €20/Kilo, but the menu clearly states that the coffee is a specialty and is sold as something completely extraordinary and out of the ordinary. Of course, if you compare a horse (80p) with a mule (<80p), you notice the difference, but if you compare it with a thoroughbred (90+) the difference is even more noticeable. If you compare a commercial coffee with an 80p one, you logically opt for the 80p one and notice the difference. It's like putting all brand name clothing in the same bag, and valuing a Polo and an Emporio Armani equally.
The world is a business in itself, and those who get on the specialty coffee bandwagon do so, among other things, for business, and one of the fundamental objectives of every barista and professional in the specialty coffee sector is to defend just that, the specialty coffee. It must be made clear that if you do not invest in quality, you will not have quality, and you must teach the client and the businessman to put value on the product. If a new business is going to open its doors and wants to work with specialty coffee but does not want to pay what it is worth and the quality that exists between each coffee is not made clear, then it is going to sell the 80p specialty coffee as if was one of 90+, which many businesses today do and I consider it to be a huge mistake and a setback in the industry. If a business wants to get on the specialty coffee bandwagon but it seems expensive, or does not want to go beyond those 80p so as not to have to charge its customer 1 or 2 euros for coffee and avoid headaches... then, it should bet on something else. Because I personally see that little by little exactly the same thing is being done as with commercial coffee, specialty coffee is being sold as something truly exceptional and out of the ordinary just because that coffee is in theory 80p, exactly the same as the commercials did. by selling their coffee as something super incredible simply by starting to say that it is 100% Arabica and its origin is from Ethiopia... Yes, it is 80p, yes, it is specialty according to SCA regulations, yes to everything . But it is not exceptional, it is not comparable to real specialty quality and yet it is being sold as such.
Conclusion, within specialty coffee as it is stipulated and we know it today, there are different quality categories, very good quality coffee 80-85p, excellent quality coffee 85-90p and specialty coffee 90+ (of This way I wanted to mention it on this occasion). I will always defend any coffee from 80p onwards, because it is my job, my passion and my duty, but I will always teach and emphasize a lot between the different types of quality that exist. This thought has been running through my head for a long time and I have tried to reflect it clearly so that it is constructive, positive and generates reflection and healthy debate.
A possible solution, it may be interesting to classify specialty coffee into 3 classes or grades, you could say Class C or Grade 3 specialty coffee for 80-85p, Class B or Grade 2 specialty coffee for 85-90p and specialty coffee Class A or Grade 1 for 90+. In this way it is easier for the consumer to understand and at the same time we are differentiating qualities within specialty coffee.