What is specialty coffee?

Specialty coffee is coffee, but perhaps made with a little more special care than you may expect from a traditional low cost, commodity coffee, such as Folgers, Dunkin Donuts and even Starbucks. To make coffee requires more than 72 steps in the process, from growing to harvesting to processing to milling and transporting. If commodity coffee is just that, a commodity, then specialty coffee would not be considered so simple. There would be individual consideration for many or all the 72 steps of the process, all the way into your cup. And the results are often a better tasting cup, one that can be recognized by the customers who drink it.

Specialty coffee is generally coffee that scores higher in a standardized coffee scoring metric, similar to what you may recognize in wine scoring. Specialty coffees achieve scores of 85 points or higher (the standard used to be an 80-point score) and are generally priced much higher than that of commodity coffee. Beyond taste and attribute scores, specialty coffee can also reflect the better values taken in every step in the value chain. This could include more careful farming practices all the way to how the product is cared for in transit. Specialty coffee is part how we think of coffee and its journey and the results of the quality in the cup.

As you can read, specialty coffee is not necessarily a simple thing to understand. You kind of need to think a bit outside the box on the topic if you wish to fully-grasp the entire concept. And for many people, they may only choose to understand coffee nothing more than brown water (hopefully tasty brown water). But for coffee roasters, such as Reverie Coffee Roasters, this is the one of the most important parts of our existence. Telling the story of the farmers, helping shape the future of coffee farming, and all the steps to produce better quality coffee is one of our biggest Why’s to keep us moving every day.

Coffee shops serving a slightly elevated to premium customer and coffee beverage experience are generally serving specialty coffee. While you cannot fully know everything about all the coffees you enjoy, it’s always a good sign when you can learn something about the coffee you are purchasing. Look for information posted in the store, on the bag, on the website, and of course, from the people who sell it to you. If they know something about the coffee they are serving, there’s a good chance it is specialty coffee.

We only hope more customers begin to ask about the origin of their cup of coffee so we can begin to better understand how we can improve the lives of the people in coffee producing countries. Specialty coffee is much more special than one could ever imagine if you take time to drink it and learn about it.

Do you own or are opening a coffee shop and need a roasting partner committed to providing the best quality specialty coffee in Middle America? Visit our wholesale page to learn more about how we help businesses get started.