Hello my lovely friends, welcome to this lovely little corner of the website devoted to the glorious third-wave movement of specialty coffee. This may not be the most ground-breaking post to those of you in the industry, but so many people have asked about what makes specialty coffee so special, I thought I should address the matter early on.

The technical definition of specialty coffee as defined by the SCA is a coffee that is graded 80 points or above on a 100 point scale by a certified coffee taster (SCAA) or by a licensed Q Grader(CQI)

“Specialty coffees are coffees at their peak and are different to other coffee because specialty coffee has been grown at the perfect altitude, at the correct time of year, in the best soil, and then picked at just the right time. All this translates into some of the most exciting and tasty coffee in the…