Decoding Defects: Introduction
I’ve been working on a number of projects lately, but it’s time for me to take a breather, clear my mind, and spend some time writing about Green Coffee Defects. First off, I need to say that I have been privileged along the way to learn from many in the coffee industry about the significance of green coffee defects for my coffee. These have included importers, exporters, coffee producers, and coffee educators and consultants who I have had the pleasure of listening to, learning from, and working with along the way.
First, let’s place context around Green Coffee Grading:
Camila Khalifé gave an incredible speech at Roast Summit in Portland OR in 2024. Here she rightfully asked the question of how much of any particular defect has to be present before someone can “taste the defect” in the coffee. Check out Camila’s speech here before going any further because I think it sets the necessary context for this entire discussion.
Then follow up with their work here: https://www.instagram.com/concaradecafe/
Misapplying green coffee defect classifications can lead to unethical practices—and even reinforce neocolonial outcomes. The reason this matters is because the classifications we rely on today were created by predominantly white men in coffee-consuming countries. While widely accepted, these standards originated from those with institutional purchasing power—not from producers themselves. This makes it critical for us to realize all of the things that these old standards CAN tell us, as well as all the things they CANNOT tell us.I would encourage you to be careful and thoughtful when you are working with green coffee defects.
I think there are two major ways that we need to be careful when using green defect evaluation in coffee purchasing. The guiding star for us, though, should be that we ought not use green coffee grading as a way to gain power or pass judgment.
Using it as a way to set pricing apart from all of the other value-added aspects of coffee, like flavor, labor, relationship, cost of production, etc., is a power grab move that kind of makes you an awful person. A coffee can be a great coffee and/or worthy of a great price, even if it does not technically qualify as “Specialty Green Coffee” as it has historically been defined.
We need to be very careful about making claims about the coffee’s flavor without further study on defect thresholds and how those impact flavor.
Green coffee defects are not directly tied to coffee flavor. It is possible to have a coffee that qualifies as specialty green coffee, which does not score as specialty coffee on a tasting form. Likewise, you could have a coffee sample that does not qualify as specialty green coffee, which scores exceptionally well on a tasting form.
Please keep in mind that when we’re evaluating green coffee, we are looking for obvious physical signs of defects that stem from the growing, harvesting, and processing. When we are sample roasting and tasting the coffee samples, our scores reflect the reality of their chemical makeup.
Unicorn Coffees
Something I often say when talking about green grading and specialty coffee is this: Specialty green coffee is a unicorn. It’s fleeting. Ephemeral. It doesn’t really exist.
Now, I don’t say that because I’ve never seen it or because samples never grade out as specialty—quite the opposite, actually. But it all comes down to the particular sample in front of you. One 100–300g “representative” sample might be flawless and meet the standard… but the next 100–300g from the same lot? Maybe it catches a full black, a full sour, or a piece of foreign material—and just like that, it’s no longer specialty.
And that’s without even touching on how it tastes. It could score 86-88 points… and yet… DEFECTS!!!
So, what should I use green grading for?
If green grading has a potentially problematic past, may be scientifically unfounded RE: the impact of objective physical green defects on the subjective quality of the coffee, etc… then should we be looking at green coffee defects? What is the benefit to learning this information and taking the time to sort through a green coffee sample looking for these defects (~ 20 minutes per sample)?
For me the benefit of green coffee grading is placing the coffee within a context, and doing some minor green coffee forensics to understand what this coffee has been through. I want to be perfectly clear that green coffee grading will, for the most part, not cause me to accept or reject a coffee. However, having a green coffee evaluation done to reflect back on after blind cupping the sample will give me a greater understanding of what could be going on, and what I may expect from the larger lot of this particular coffee.
I can also use this information to carefully and respectfully tell the producer, exporter, and miller what I noticed (realizing that I am not a coffee farmer, processor, miller, or exporter, and do not have the most knowledge in this field). It is important to ask these people in question if they are interested in our feedback, what we noticed, etc. before proceeding in giving that feedback. Imagine, for a moment, a customer who was not a roaster deciding to tell you that your development time was 30 seconds too short…
Where we’re going from here:
As I write this series, with each blog post focusing on a specific green coffee defect, my goal is to raise awareness as to what these defects are, how to diagnose them, and what sort of impact they may have on our coffees. I will also discuss my real life experiences in green coffee grading and working as a buyer of green coffee.
If you want to go deeper:
We’re going deeper right now in the Mentorhsip Groups. If you want to see real-world applications of what we’re talking about here, or geek out in depth, please come and join us. You’ll find more info here: forum.hoos.coffee
