Who decides what specialty coffee is?

The classic definition is numeric: coffee that scores 80 or above on the SCA cupping protocol, graded by calibrated cuppers. That single threshold built the modern specialty trade — importers, roasters and auctions all speak in points.

The machinery behind it is deliberately independent: the SCA defines the standards, the Coffee Quality Institute trains and licenses the Q Graders, and the grader scores blind — never knowing the farm or the brand. That independence is what makes the term meaningful across languages and borders, and it is why we build our reviews on top of it, not instead of it.

But points measure one thing: the sensory experience of a brewed sample. They don't capture farming conditions, price fairness, or the coffee's story — which is why the SCA spent years developing the Coffee Value Assessment (introduced in 2023): a broader framework describing coffee on multiple dimensions instead of a single number. Meanwhile, there is no legal definition anywhere: 'specialty' on a bag is a claim, backed by the reputation of whoever makes it. The honest answer: the industry's cuppers set the convention, the market enforces it, and the definition itself is being renegotiated in real time.