How Fancy Is Your Brew? An SCA Style Guide to Coffee Grading

If you’ve ever looked at a bag of beans labeled “Specialty Coffee” and wondered, “Says who?” — welcome to the wonderful, slightly obsessive world of coffee grading brought to you by the SCA (Specialty Coffee Association): the global gatekeepers of coffee quality standards. And yes, we love them for it.

Not all coffee is created equal. Some beans are just born to be bougie, and others… well, not so much.

Let’s pull back the curtain and see what makes it special.

A Little History (Because Origins Matter — Just Ask Any Barista)

Back in the dark ages (pre-1980s), coffee grading was pretty inconsistent and, frankly, a bit of a mess. Importers and exporters used different standards, and quality control was inconsistent.

Finally, the Specialty Coffee Association swooped in with clipboards, cupping spoons, and righteous indignation to clean things up. They formalized a global grading system, which is now the gold standard for determining whether a coffee is “specialty” or just meh.

Step One: Screen Size — Yes, Bean Size Matters

Before anyone gets too romantic about aroma or flavor, coffee starts with physical grading — and that begins with screen size. This has nothing to do with your phone, and everything to do with bean uniformity.

What is it? Screen size determines the size of the beans. A screen (like a metal sieve) with holes of different diameters is used to sort them. Coffee screen size ranges from 10-22. The bigger the screen number, the bigger the bean.

• Specialty coffees generally have larger, more uniform beans — think Screen 16 or above.

• Smaller or irregular beans may result in inconsistent roasting and brewing.

Why it matters: Uniformity in size = uniform roasting = no charred nightmares or grassy weirdness in your cup. If you’ve ever had a brew that tasted like both smoke and lawn clippings, now you know why.

Step Two: Cupping — The Fancy Slurp Test

Once the beans pass the size test, it’s time for the real judging: cupping. Think of it as a wine tasting but with more slurping and fewer vineyards.

How it works:

• Coffee is roasted light to medium (to preserve the bean’s integrity), ground coarsely, and steeped in hot water.

• Tasters — called Q graders (the sommeliers of coffee) — evaluate aroma, flavor, aftertaste, acidity, body, balance, and more.

• They score each category on a scale, aiming for a final score out of 100.

Specialty Coffee = 80 points or higher. If it scores under 80, it’s technically not specialty, even if your barista gave it a fancy name and served it in a reclaimed mason jar.

Types of Defects -Why Your Beans Might Flunk

Beans are judged for primary and secondary defects:

• Primary defects are the big problems — black beans resulting from poor drying or fermentation, sour beans resulting from over-fermentation, moldy beans, and non-coffee items such as stones or unprocessed parts of the coffee cherry. Just one of these defects per 350g sample, and it’s game over for “specialty” status.

• Secondary defects include broken beans, husks, shells, minor debris or insect damage. You can have a few, but not too many.

• The size and total number of defects determine the grade.

  G1- Specialty Grade Green Coffee:  No more than 5 full defects per 300-gram sample. No primary defects are allowed.  A maximum of 5% above or below screen size indicated is acceptable. Moisture content is between 9-13%.

• G2- Premium Coffee Grade: Premium coffee must have no more than 8 full defects in a 300-gram sample.  Primary defects are allowed.  A maximum of 5% above or below screen size indicated is acceptable.  Moisture content is between 9-13%.

• G3- Exchange Coffee Grade: Exchange grade coffee must have no more than 9-23 full defects in 300-gram sample. It must be 50% by weight above screen size 15 with no more than 5% of screen size below 14.  Moisture content is between 9-13%.

• G4- Below Standard Coffee Grade: 24-86 defects in 300 grams.

• G5- Off Grade Coffee: More than 86 defects in 300 grams.

  
  

The Role of Roasting

Here’s the plot twist: you can start with world-class beans and still ruin them with a bad roast. A roaster’s job is to highlight the bean’s natural qualities, not to nuke them into oblivion.

Good roasting:

• Brings out the origin characteristics (e.g., citrusy brightness in Ethiopian, nutty smoothness in Brazilian).

• Avoids “roastiness” (when everything just tastes like charred toast and regret.)

• Preserves the flavors noted in cupping, like florals, fruit, chocolate, or spice.

Bad roasting: You’ll know it. Imagine it like someone tried to make espresso in an incinerator.

Specialty Coffee- A Quick Recap

To officially be called specialty, a coffee must:

1. Score 80+ points in a cupping evaluation by certified Q graders.

2. Have minimal defects (almost none).

3. Be well-processed (washed, natural, or honey — but done right).

4. Be roasted properly (not too light, not too dark — it’s a Goldilocks situation).

5. Taste like something you look forward to savoring again.

   
   

Final Sip: Does It Matter?

If you just want caffeine in your bloodstream and don't care how it got there, then no — none of this really matters. But if you care about where your coffee came from, how it was handled, and whether it tastes like anything more nuanced than “brown”, then yes — grading matters. A lot.

So, the next time you’re sipping that single-origin Ethiopian heirloom beans roasted on the third wave of the lunar calendar, know that someone, somewhere, gave that coffee a score.

And it probably passed with flying colors.