When it comes to quality standards for green coffee exports, each country establishes their own grading parameters according to altitude and region, variety, process, bean size, number of defects, cup quality and bean density.
While this creates an internal language for exporters to prepare their lots and to provide feedback to coffee producers, bean grading also makes it easy for roasters to know the quality before they will get their coffee arrived.
Keep on reading, we will tell you how green bean grading works at Dinámica and why it is so important for our daily activities.
At Dinamica we use the SCA green bean grading protocol in order to process the different
samples we receive in our lab. Our quality analyst Peter Engelhardt is in charge of receiving and providing the respective diagnosis that accepts or rejects every sample he evaluates. There are three different types of samples we get:
Producer’s Samples: These are analysed prior to purchasing a new lot of coffee from any of our producer partners.
Parchment Samples: These samples represent the quality of new coffee lots arriving to our warehouse which need to be analysed upon arrival of the coffee in order to start the dry milling process based on the preparation.
Pre Shipment/Export Samples: These samples are evaluated in order to confirm that the coffee ready to be exported meets the quality standards. In this case, the coffee has already been milled and prepared and for the last time before the shipment, its physical and sensory quality needs to be verified.
Grading and Classification
The sample visual inspection consists of taking 350 gm, measuring its moisture content, dehulling, screening and hand sorting the primary and secondary defects based on the SCA green grading protocol.
This result will reveal the physical quality of the sample as well as the yield (how much weight loss we get after the parchment coffee is dehulled). Here the quality analyst makes decisions on how to proceed with the coffee in terms of milling and preparation. Once the sample is cleaned and sorted, it needs to be roasted and cupped to proceed with the sensory analysis.
Preparation
Every coffee we receive in our warehouse follows a specific preparation according to the clients specifications; at Dinamica we work with three preparations:
JP Japanese Preparation: which takes the beans from screen 15 to 19.
EP European Preparation: this preparation is used specifically for microlots and takes the beans from screen 15 and upwards and allows 5 secondary defects per 350 grs.
AP American Preparation: this preparation is used for standard quality and takes the beans from screen 14 and upwards and allows 25 secondary defects per 350 grs.
Feedback to the Producer
Additionally, green coffee grading is the basis to interpret what happens to the coffee throughout the entire value chain. Analysing each defect, shows the crop’s performance, how the beans were processed, whether the drying system was appropriate to reach the ideal moisture content and more.
All these interpretations are key to provide constant feedback to our producer partners,to understand and evaluate impact of what the different coffee producing regions are going through in terms of weather conditions such as droughts, rainy seasons and drastic temperature changes that could affect the quality of the beans.
At Dinámica we take very seriously every coffee we analyse, we know how much input and effort it takes to get a high quality coffee and being strict with this part of the process helps producers to keep producing the best beans at its best.