Ferra Coffee: Q Grading Day!

Its another hot hot Labor Day here in San Antonio, Texas. We hope everyone is enjoying themselves and taking the opportunity to celebrate our country's "yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country". I decided out of curiosity, to look into the history of Labor Day and its beginnings and found that quote on U.S. Department of Labor website :) .

We are still working over here but we love our job so its all good. Today Susan is escaping the normal hustle of a regular work day and taking the time to do one of the things she enjoys most about her job, Q grading and roasting samples. We receive a LOT of samples throughout the year from coffee growers all over the world asking Susan to Q Grade and cup their coffee. Its important for them to know what their coffee grade is so they know at what price they should sell their coffee and if there are any important defects in their coffee that they need to take care of so that their next harvest can be even better.

Today on the board we have samples from 10 different growers in various countries. The process begins by grading the green coffee.

Here is where we would check different things like water content in the beans and the amount of defects the coffee has...

We then write all the results down and give the green coffee a grade of Premium, Specialty, or Commercial. Just a bit of info, we only purchase and sell Premium and Specialty graded coffees which means that our coffee is guaranteed to have little to no defects. Defects can have a huge impact on the quality and taste of the coffee. Make sure to check and see if your local roaster is a certified Q Grader and what grades and origins of coffee they purchase.

After grading the coffee it is then roasted and will need to degas for a period of time before we can come in and cup it. From that point we can find the flavor profile of the coffee. Its a fun process and its one we take a lot of pride in. We will send the results to the growers which they will use to better promote their coffee and ensure they receive a fair price for their product. Hopefully we will be contacting the growers with the premium coffees and start putting our orders in! For the growers that ranked at a commercial we like to offer as much help as we can. While they may not get as much for this harvest we still want to help them make sure they can get as much as possible while also letting them know exactly what problems we found and how they can correct these issues so that their next harvest will rank better.