What is specialty grade coffee? How is it different?
Maybe 1%-2% of global coffee is of the quality to receive the grade of “specialty”. That's it! The world wide economics of coffee are amazing and super impactful. Many of us can't even grasp the global impacts of coffee. It is the 2nd most traded commodity in the world! Second only to CRUDE OIL!
We are a tiny little boutique coffee company, but that is what we are working with is a tiny percentage of the coffee available. What we are actually dealing with is entirely different products. Most coffees sold at a grocery store and sold commercially are full of foreign materials, fully soured beans, even beans with fungus!
Take Costa Rica for example, a country that has been growing coffee for hundreds of years vs Vietnam that has been growing for only 20 or so years. Costa Rica has heritage and tradition; these bean varieties are proven winners decade after decade. Many of the imported coffees are hybrid beans and commercial varieties. Even genetically modified. The heirloom varieties are delicate, they require additional care. Sure, the commercial hybrid beans are disease resistant and have a superior yield, but coffee is about TASTE. You can’t replicate taste in a laboratory. Also, soil quality is a big deal. These are seeds from plants and they require nutrients and climates to be at 100%.
If we are being honest, no one, no matter how cheap, can deny that these specialty graded coffees DO NOT compare to the mass production commercial offerings.