"Welcome to Five Senses Coffee"

With massive growth in the number of coffees available for purchase, having the skill to discern and accurately articulate their value is quickly becoming very useful. As much as we love to get sucked into the inevitable quality debate, snapping up the best coffees requires us to get over our own personal subjectivity and force ourselves to start throwing down some definitive numbers.

To give you some perspective, progressive farmers are continuing to see the value in breaking down their offerings into micro-regions, varietals and processing techniques. As long as we continue to find markets for these coffees, I can’t see this slowing down anytime soon. Their extra work is rewarded with higher premiums, wider exposure for their coffee and, eventually, if high quality is consistently established, international buyers competing for their crop. This means that we as coffee buyers now find ourselves sifting through multiple lots that were once bulked together and sold as one. Multiply that by 10-12 origins as well as several options from each country, and you see why defining quality numerically can become more of a logistical necessity. Not that I’m complaining!

This February we hosted the first Q (Quality) Graders course in Australia at our new 5 Senses training centre in West Melbourne. Craig Holt came from Seattle to run the CQI’s (Coffee Quality Institute) week-long course for 20 students from both Melbourne and Perth, eight of whom work with us here at 5 Senses. The week was all about sensory training and evaluating sensory acuity, calibration and learning an industry language. Having other roasters, cafes and even green bean importers with us was a great calibrating experience for everyone involved. It was all about honing tasting skills and defining values for aroma, flavour, body, balance, acidity, clean cup, sweetness, uniformity, aftertaste and overall preference. The end result, a score and value indentified with each coffee based on 100.

When all’s said and done, I wouldn’t be surprised if some people questioned the validity of the exact process. Depending on the application, it’s possible to find yourself tweaking the score sheets or adjusting the significance you place on the final number. I really can’t think of any perfect system in a our very zealous industry, but I do thank the people at CQI for throwing down some numbers, creating a system and teaching a common language to a growing number of industry professionals, as well as producers.

Getting comfortable with scoring coffee has been one of the most valuable tools I’ve learned in my coffee career. Not only does it have huge value in selecting coffees as well as promoting accurate communication with farmers and importers, it is also an integral system that ensures quality is recognised and rewarded, which consequently continues to inspire farmers to push Quality boundaries.