What are COE Coffee Beans? Differences Between COE and SOE, Coffee Characteristics, SOE Coffee Full Name, Meaning, and Flavor Profile

As more people drink specialty coffee, many friends delve deeper into specialty coffee, only to encounter numerous abbreviated English terms that make it difficult for many to continue their in-depth study. For example, people often cannot distinguish between the differences between COE and SOE.

In fact, COE and SOE are two completely different concepts. The full name of COE is Cup of Excellence, also known as the "Excellence Cup" - it is the world's most important competition for specialty green coffee beans. It was first held in Brazil in 1999 by the Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE), and is currently the world's most renowned and authoritative specialty green coffee competition, as well as the most credible competition for judging specialty coffee.

The competition features a jury composed of international cuppers. During the three-week competition period, coffee beans must participate in at least five cupping evaluations, with the top 10 advancing to an additional round. Coffee farmers selected as COE winners not only gain recognition for their excellent coffee quality but also receive considerable auction proceeds. Good auction revenue enables coffee farmers to have more opportunities to improve quality, and also gives consumers more opportunities to drink good coffee, creating a virtuous cycle.

This competition system was first adopted by coffee production groups in Brazil in 1999 and is now widely used in places like Colombia, Guatemala, Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, showing a trend toward popularization. It must be mentioned that this year marks Ethiopia's first-ever COE Excellence Cup competition and auction.

The entire COE Excellence Cup competition is divided into three stages: Pre-selection, National Jury, and International Jury.

1. Pre-selection Stage

All judges are domestic professional judges, with no participation from any ACE judges. The domestic jury typically consists of 12-18 people who have very strict requirements for every aspect, including the roast degree of coffee beans and the cupping process flow. Each coffee bean undergoes rigorous review.

In the pre-selection stage, only coffee beans with cupping scores of 85 points or above are eligible to advance to the national competition stage. In this pre-selection stage, 1,459 coffee beans participated, and after the first round of cupping screening, 150 coffee beans were selected to advance to the national competition stage.

2. National Jury Stage

The judges are the same as in the pre-selection stage - all are domestic professional cupping judges. In this stage, two rounds of cupping are conducted. In the first round, 90 coffee beans scoring 85 points or above are retained from the pre-selection's 150 coffee beans for the second round of cupping.

The second round of cupping then selects 40 coffee beans scoring 85 points or above from these 90 coffee beans to advance to the international competition stage.

Therefore, COE is a green coffee competition with relatively high international authority.

In 2020, during Ethiopia's first COE green coffee competition, FrontStreet Coffee participated in the auction for the first time and jointly acquired the 22nd-ranked coffee bean with other coffee merchants. The flavor profile includes citrus, lychee, honey, cream, and fermentation notes.

Understanding SOE

SOE stands for Single Origin Espresso, meaning single-origin espresso coffee. It refers to espresso made from coffee beans from a single origin, which has relatively obvious differences from traditionally used Italian blend beans.

Many coffee shops now offer SOE, usually requiring only a few extra dollars on top of the original price to switch to SOE coffee beans. The characteristic of SOE is its slightly lighter roast degree, which can express the flavor characteristics of a single origin.

As the concept of specialty coffee becomes increasingly popular among people, from single-origin pour-over coffee to single-origin espresso, it all reflects coffee enthusiasts' ultimate pursuit of coffee flavor. This has also led many people to form an habitual thinking that SOE coffee flavors are better than blended coffee.

Is SOE Always Better Than Blend-based Espresso?

Not necessarily! Some SOEs can indeed achieve both flavor and richness, showing special performance when milk/water is added. However, in most cases, after trying a coffee beverage with SOE as the base, people will feel: "Actually, it's not that amazing, it's not even as good as that made from blended coffee beans." Why does this situation occur?

First, coffee as an agricultural product - even the same coffee bean can have flavor differences due to climate, soil cultivation effects, or different roasting approaches. If you drink a very good SOE coffee at a café and return after some time to find it's the same coffee beans but doesn't feel as good as before, perhaps this coffee bean is from a new harvest season or the roasting approach has changed, causing the coffee bean's flavor itself to be different.

Previously, people thought that single-origin coffee beans had average quality and that espresso extraction flavors were too erratic, so they wanted to improve flavors by blending coffee beans. This could solve problems where the espresso flavor at the same shop varied too much due to different harvest times, slightly different roasting approaches, or crop failure of a particular coffee bean.

Second, to express clear coffee flavors, many choose light-roasted single-origin coffee beans. Although light-roasted coffee beans have distinct flavors, they often lack richness. Perhaps this coffee bean has balanced flavor and body when making pour-over coffee, but when made into espresso, due to the short extraction time, the rich substances in light-roasted coffee beans haven't been released, resulting in a thin situation. After adding milk/water, the coffee flavor becomes indistinct, and it tastes rather ordinary.

So now everyone should stop confusing COE with SOE.

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