Coffee Bean Grading, Certifications, and Brand Names
The other day I had the chance to give a coffee course for the PTA at a school in the area where I live.
Since it was that kind of setting, rather than introducing Botarhythm, I tried to keep the content fair and reasonably comprehensive, approaching it from the angle of "what is coffee, anyway?" That turned out to be surprisingly difficult.
Even so, knowledge and taste are directly connected, so in the limited time I had, I packed in as much as I could, hoping it would make everyone's coffee life a little more delicious and enjoyable.
For me too, it was a chance to organize my own thinking about coffee again, and I came away feeling strongly that I need to keep sharing it.
Now, on to the main subject in the title. It is far too broad and deep a theme to cover in a single blog post, so this time I will just give an overview.
Up to now, my approach has been to keep output on highly specialized information to a minimum, and to introduce coffee in a way that feels approachable and easy to take in.
That basic stance will not change, but going forward I would like to also touch on some slightly geekier, more trivia-like information in blog posts and other content.
Mixed in with my own interpretation, which may include some bias and personal opinion, I plan to post these irregularly as the musings of a coffee bean shop owner.
Gaining knowledge about coffee leads to a deeper appreciation of its flavor.
So please drip a cup of freshly ground coffee, sip it slowly, and enjoy reading with a smile.
Also, please take a look at this page about the specialty coffee Botarhythm carries.
[Grading Systems Unique to Each Country]
Coffee beans are an important agricultural export for each producing region. That is why each country has established its own quality standards and grades its coffee beans in an effort to keep quality and distribution consistent.
Brazil
In Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, beans are sorted by size using mesh screens into grades such as S20, S19, S18 through S12, and further graded by the number of defective beans and by cup testing.
Guatemala
In Guatemala, a renowned coffee origin in Central America, beans are graded by the altitude of the growing region, in an order such as SHB, HB, SH, and so on. SHB stands for "Strictly Hard Bean," which literally means "very hard bean." Coffee cherries grown at high altitude mature slowly due to the large swing in temperature between day and night, so the fruit tends to become densely packed and develop distinctive flavor characteristics.
Ethiopia
In Ethiopia, said to be the birthplace of the coffee tree, harvested beans are graded from G1, G2, G3, up to G4-G8, based on the number of defective beans, with fewer defects earning a higher grade. Ethiopia's best known coffee growing area is the Sidamo region, and the Yirgacheffe beans Botarhythm often carries come from a particularly high altitude part of that same region, at 2000 to 2500 meters.
Kenya
Kenya, though also in Africa, uses a different grading system again. Beans are graded by screen size into AA, A, B, C. Beans that are too large are still rated lower.
Indonesia
Indonesia, a major coffee producing region in Asia. Here too, beans are sorted into grades from G1 to G5, with fewer defective beans earning a higher grade. Among the coffees grown across the Indonesian islands, the one most familiar to Japanese coffee drinkers may well be Mandheling. That said, there are various theories about which coffee the name Mandheling actually refers to, so whether it can be called high quality coffee on that basis alone is a bit of a gray area. Botarhythm uses Arabica G1 beans grown in the Lintong district of Sumatra.
There are many other coffee producing countries as well, each with its own grading standards.
[Certification Systems]
Separate from evaluation standards for the coffee beans themselves, various certification systems also exist.
Certification systems are not standards for evaluating coffee quality, but rather institutional arrangements concerning the environment surrounding coffee and the way it is traded. Here is an introduction to some of the major certification systems.
Fair Trade (https://www.fairtrade-jp.org/)
The reality is that in countries often called developing nations, the standard of living for people involved in growing coffee and other crops is significantly lower than in consuming countries. The price of these crops is also traded as a speculative commodity in some cases, and it fluctuates sharply with the market, which is one factor that makes life unstable for people in producing countries. Fair Trade is an effort in which small scale farmers form producer cooperatives, build up their production capacity, gain the bargaining power to receive fair compensation for their labor, stabilize their livelihoods through the profits gained from applying a set "Fair Trade minimum price," and work toward the sustainable development of the whole community, including schools and hospitals.
For a coffee roastery to use this certification mark, purchasing is originally supposed to be done by the sack, but I do wonder how that plays out in practice.
Rainforest Alliance (https://www.rainforest-alliance.org/ja/)
This is an effort toward solving environmental and social issues such as deforestation, climate change, and improving working conditions. It is a certification system that places importance on conservation and aims for sustainable, developing coexistence between forest environments and agriculture. In coffee, this includes what is called shade grown coffee, grown in the shade while maintaining the diversity of trees and other life in the rainforest. Naturally, this makes work such as harvesting less efficient, but from a sustainability standpoint it receives real focus, and a variety of efforts are being made to improve conditions across the social, economic, and environmental spheres.
With the SDGs drawing so much attention these days, this also appears to play a part in corporate sustainable investment.
Organic (JAS Organic)(http://www.organic-cert.or.jp/)
This may be the certification system people are most familiar with. It refers to farming methods that use soil without chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Not using genetically modified technology is also a requirement.
In Japan, under the JAS Act, only foods certified by a registered certifying body may carry an "organic" label. The requirements of the certification system differ depending on whether you are a producer, an importer/exporter, or a retailer.
For producers in particular, the process assumes the relevant field has gone two to three years without chemical fertilizers or prohibited pesticides, and requires no small amount of cost and effort for training, certification applications, and on site inspections. Some voices have raised questions about fairness on this point.
[Brand Names]
The question of what a brand actually is tends to bring a tangle of different interpretations and opinions, so here I will simply define it as "a name given with the intent to differentiate," and look at some examples.
Blue Mountain: the name for coffee grown and harvested in the Blue Mountain area of Jamaica. Because of its scarcity, it trades at very high prices. It appears not only as a single origin coffee but also as a premium lineup under the name Blue Mountain Blend.
I sometimes feel that importing a Blue Mountain that has built up this kind of brand has itself become something of a vested interest.
Peaberry: coffee beans, the seed of the coffee cherry, normally come as a pair, two beans inside one cherry. Occasionally, in cherries growing at the tip of a branch, only one bean forms instead. Beans collected this way are called peaberries. Because of their scarcity, peaberries trade at relatively high prices. In much the same way that a chicken egg with two yolks is occasionally sold as a novelty "twin egg," my own view is that scarcity does not necessarily back up quality.
Kopi Luwak: an extremely high end coffee bean called "Kopi Luwak," collected from the droppings of the civet cat found in Indonesia. It is a rare specialty product whose value is even recognized by the Indonesian government, but there is also a movement to reconsider its value, given the flood of imitation products and concerns raised over animal welfare. My own take is that this falls squarely into the category of a novelty item.
Mocha: still a name with real presence in classic old style coffee shops. Mocha is the name of a port in Yemen. Facing Ethiopia across the Red Sea on the eastern side of the African continent, Yemen has a long history as a coffee trading port. Coffee beans from Ethiopia and Yemen handled through that port came to be named "Mocha," and remain firmly popular. There is also a blend called "Mocha Java," which mixes in coffee beans from Indonesia.
Since there is no single fixed definition of what a "brand" is, all kinds of information circulates alongside various agendas, so this is an area where a bit of literacy is called for.
That covers, in brief, some of the basics about coffee.
Even so, this has already run quite long, so I will stop here for this time.