Direct Trade increases the quality of coffee
These experiments would never have happened without Direct Trade. Among them is the increase in communication between the roaster and the grower, which is a significant factor in creating high-quality coffee. Producers rely on roasters and inform them about market trends. In contrast to specialty coffee roasters, who are always looking for local coffee to showcase, now they can easily find the manufacturer by themselves and learn.
They visit this type of coffee farm, increasing its popularity and creating a broad knowledge base for roasters and coffee buyers. It is difficult to find a specialty roaster without a particular understanding of how their beans are grown and handled. Growers, buyers, and roasters all come together, sometimes up to a whopping 100 cups of coffee a day, to provide comparisons on the finished product and to cup on a single scorecard – and once information Just as coffee is commercialized, consumers will perceive the sophistication differently on current coffees.
Consumers play an essential role in this spin, not just producers and roasters. How? By recognizing good coffee quality. According to Jorge Raul Rivera, vice president of J Raul Rivera SA de CV and representative of Finca Santa Rosa, El Salvador:
“Customers know how to appreciate the merits of a year of harvest is a source of motivation for farmers to work harder, and their enthusiasm is reflected in the quality of excellent coffee to consumers. . It is also a strong message because if growers can convey that great quality, consumers will also reciprocate with corresponding consumption demand, the roaster also sets a level for himself. The price is more than worth it for the quality of the coffee.”
So the next time you order a cup of local coffee for yourself, you are also playing an essential role in your pursuit of good quality products. Right!?
How does the industry measure coffee quality?
It is common sense to say that being local is often good coffee. Demand for coffee resonates with direct Trade, increasing the quality and quantity of specialty coffees – but How do we understand how high-quality coffee is? Because, after all, local coffee is not synonymous with good.
Therefore, a system of standards has been put in place. International standards for measuring coffee quality serve to guide consumers to increase coffee consumption, but they also help better commercialize the process of creating excellent coffee. In addition to the fact that growers and roasters use these standards in marketing, producing green and clean coffee brings significant financial value.
The three main criteria used are Cup of Excellence, Coffee Quality Institute Q, and Coffee Review. The Cup of Excellence is a contest to recognize the quality of care of special batches of coffee varieties, considered the coffee industry’s most prestigious recognition award. The Coffee Quality Institute Q is a system that complies with SCAA standards and evaluates, at the grower level, to classify good Arabica and Robusta varieties and blends. On the other hand, Coffee Review is an invaluable title for roasters and retailers alike. It is a magazine with a large readership and also a coffee manual specializing in the review of roasted coffees.
So how do these systems value the quality of the coffee? Coffee is easy to confuse with taste and is somewhat prone to bias in judgment, so these systems do the best job of replicating a good coffee product and leaving out potential factors. They are hidden in the evaluation stage as above. They often use a blind cupping style and a 100-point scale; in each system, the criteria can be different, but in general, you will find that these standards all follow the professional definition list from The expert is applied to the taste scoresheet.