What does a 90-point coffee mean?
A 90-point coffee is world-class — the top fraction of one percent of global production. Expect extraordinary clarity, distinct, complex flavor, and impeccable cleanliness. These coffees are rare, auction-priced and usually traceable to a single farm or lot.
Sources show where the underlying information came from. They do not automatically make a claim correct, so disputed history, evolving science and uncertain claims should be labeled as such in the explanation itself.
Scores above 90 are given rarely, and usually to competition-level lots: a perfectly harvested variety, processed flawlessly, from an exceptional . What separates them from an 85 isn't one dramatic thing but the absence of any compromise: sweetness, complexity, balance and finish all peaking together. Prices follow — auction winners regularly top $100 per pound green. A score that high is also a claim about the farmer as much as the coffee: you don't get 90 points without meticulous harvesting and sorting, often by a family that has refined its processing over generations. That's why we trace 90-point coffees to the people behind them.
- ·Specialty Coffee Association(No direct source link provided)
- ·Cup of Excellence (Alliance for Coffee Excellence)(No direct source link provided)