What is specialty coffee?

Single origin. Microlots. 90 points. Shade grown. If you’re just getting started in the world of specialty coffee, these words may sound like you’re reading a textbook on Martian agriculture.

Or like a clever marketer's way of presenting a half-pie product to make you want to buy it.

Specialty coffee, the real kind, is nothing like that. There is science, passion and ethics behind what started as a humble movement and grew to represent 50% of the value of the global coffee trade today.

Join us on a journey into the world of high-end beverages. Find out what it takes to score 90 points on the coffee points scale and why only a fraction of all coffees make it into this hall of fame.

And most importantly, why it is not a marketing gimmick, but a fair and sustainable way of growing coffee.
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When did the specialty coffee movement begin?

As with many things in life, great things happen when a wise person takes a brilliant idea and wraps it in a name. In the case of specialty coffee, it was Erna Knutsen, the first woman allowed into a tasting room.

Knutsen was the first person to use the term specialty coffee in an interview for the Tea & Coffee Trade Journal in 1974. He used it to describe premium beans produced by small farms in unique microclimates.

He did this at a time when coffee consumption had reached a record low. Why? Americans drank instant coffee because the quality of commercial coffee was so poor that no one could tell the difference between the two.

So Knutsen paved the way to connect consumers willing to pay more for a better cup of coffee with small, specialty coffee producers.

The specialty coffee industry today

Today, the specialty coffee industry has grown considerably from its humble beginnings. One important metric that has been steadily increasing is the proportion of Americans who don’t drink premium coffee occasionally, but have made it their daily ritual.

  • As things stood two years ago, the specialty coffee segment's share already accounted for 56% of the $87 billion coffee market in the US alone.

  • In 2001, only 14% of American coffee lovers enjoyed a specialty coffee daily.

  • In 2017, the figure rose to a staggering 41%.

This has largely been thanks to growing consumer demand, combined with strong support for research and development driven by international associations, the most prominent of which is the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA).

Specialty coffee is a virtuous circle

  • FARMERS AND AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES

    To produce excellent coffee, farmers must continually invest in developing sustainable practices. Growing high-quality Arabica coffee is challenging, and to achieve those flavours and consistency, it must be grown in the shade at 1,500 m or higher.

  • BUYERS

    At the mid-cycle, coffee buyers connect demand with supply. Purchase prices must ensure a decent wage for farmers, allowing them to reinvest profits into developing better, more sustainable farming methods.

  • YOU

    Your willingness to pay a premium price for a high-quality cup of coffee. With your help, specialty coffee has come a long way from its humble beginnings. With every cup you enjoy, you are proving that sustainability, economic viability, and healthy growth can coexist.

Specialty Coffees: The Definition

  • To be classified as specialty, coffee must meet strict rules defining its origin and farming practices.

  • Once these boxes are checked, they are scored by expert samplers.

  • If you receive an adequate score, you can enter the specialty coffee range.

What are these facts and what does the result tell us?

When did the specialty coffee movement begin?

The coffee plant family has more than 120 different species, but almost all of the world's coffee production comes from just two types: Coffea Arabica and Coffea Canephora, also known as Robusta.

Arabica is difficult to grow, but it contains almost twice the concentration of sugars and 60% more lipids, so it can develop a much wider variety of flavors.

Besides the taste problem, there is another reason why Robusta cannot make it into the specialty hall of fame. This species has been overexploited in industrial coffee farming, which prefers quantity over quality. Quite the opposite of what the specialty coffee sector stands for: fair trade and sustainable agricultural practices.

Admittedly, this speciesism tastes awful. And, indeed, there have been some recent advances that have raised the bar for robusta coffee. But Arabica's cousin has a long way to go before it sheds its commercial-grade characteristics and starts competing on the specialty track.

So for now, bags that say “blend” or “x% Robusta” on the back are commercial-grade coffee, even if the front screams “gourmet,” “green,” or “100% Guatemalan.”

Fact #2: Specialty coffee beans must be hand-picked

To speed up production and reduce costs, industrial coffee farming uses machines to harvest the coffee. But no machine can tell the difference between a perfectly ripe coffee cherry and one that isn't. So what you get in your bag of coffee at the supermarket is a mix of coffee beans and potential coffee.

Specialty coffee beans are hand-picked by farmers who have built their expertise through knowledge passed down through generations of trial and failure. They can recognize when the cherries of a certain variety are at their ripest and pick only those.

And, wow, you can see the difference

Fact #3: Specialty coffees are strictly single origin

Like every living thing, coffee grows differently every year. Weather conditions, soil quality and other factors influence its yield. Commercial-grade agriculture cannot rely on this change of mood. That is why it mixes coffee from different places. This mix ensures that the big coffee brands can always meet demand, which results in coffee tasting flat.

Specialty coffee, on the other hand, comes from a single region and you should always be able to trace its origins. This way, its particular characteristics (its history, so to speak) are perceived in every sip. If a certain region produces sweet and fruity coffee beans, you will be able to taste it.

But even Starbucks offers “single origin Sumatran” coffee. So the search for the authentic product doesn’t stop at the country level. Your beans may come from Sumatra, but were they grown on a sunny or shady hillside? Was it grown at 1,500 m (5,000 ft) above sea level, or was it close enough to the beach to get a sea breeze?

If you want to go even further in discovering fantastic flavours, narrow your search even further: look for micro lots.

Fact #4: The best specialty coffees? Micro lots of only cultivated

We mentioned earlier that specialty coffees come from a single plant species, Arabica. How can farmers grow one coffee with such a distinctive cherry flavor, while another will give hints of Earl Grey? By limiting the coffee so that it can be traced back to a single cultivar from the same microlot.
While varieties are naturally occurring mutations, cultivars are plants that have been shaped by man through years of breeding for the most desirable traits. The same Arabica coffee that originated in the mountains of Ethiopia was grown differently in other regions of the world, giving rise to new cultivars such as Bourbon and Typica.

When a coffee variety is grown on the same farm, shade-grown under the same trees, harvested on the same day, and processed together as a single lot, we call it a micro lot.

Naturally, these specialty coffees are very limited, but they bring out the best flavors and qualities of coffee. It is no wonder that they consistently score 90 points or more in coffee quality.

Speaking of which, let's look at the scoring process.

Fact #5: Coffee Rating and Coffee Quality Score

For coffee to be considered specialty, it must score 80 points or more in the cupping score evaluation.

For more information on this process, please see our coffee quality scoring guide.