What is Ninety Plus Brand? What is 90+ Coffee? Which Coffee Brand is Best?

Do You Know the Difference Between Regular Coffee Beans and 90+ Coffee Beans?

What exactly are 90+ coffee beans?

Just as Dove can only be called candy with a chocolate flavor, and instant coffee only deserves to be called a soft drink with a coffee flavor, 90+ coffee beans are the ultimate mark of honor in the coffee world.

"90+" refers to a top-tier coffee series with 13 flavor profiles. The beans sometimes come from different estates, each with its own flavor characteristics. During processing, the producers separate these coffees by variety, climate and harvest timing, tasting every lot on its own. They are like works of art pushed toward perfection, with the makers pouring their hearts into reaching the best possible taste and presenting each bean in its most complete form.

"90+"'s pursuit of ultimate flavor is genuinely admirable, and its sustainable model and environmentally friendly practices are a goal many coffee producers study. Since the company was founded in 2006, this young firm has made the global coffee industry take notice in only a few years. The series that debuted in 2007 was immediately regarded by connoisseurs as a precious selection.

90+ beans are named on a completely different logic from ordinary specialty beans. Their names carry no region or estate information. Each bean is named for its flavor profile. Nekisse, for instance, originally meant the nectar of Shakisso. Naming at 90+ usually begins with a flavor concept, then a name, and only afterward the region and partner farms are chosen. That sets it apart from regular specialty coffee and makes it a boutique-style brand.

1. Every Coffee Cupping Score Must Exceed 90 Points

This is where the 90+ name comes from. Every bean is carefully selected and scores a super-high 90+ in SCAA cupping. But what is an SCAA 90-point score worth?

Look at SCAA's definition: beans below 80 points are below specialty grade. Beans scoring 80-85 are described as very good, specialty grade, general specialty coffee, already quite good to drink. Beans scoring 85-90 are described as excellent, specialty origin, premium grade, quite impressive specialty coffee, and many COE (Cup of Excellence) top-five coffees fall into this band. Beans scoring 90-100 are described as outstanding, specialty rare, supreme grade, and that is where 90+'s products fall. Every bean exceeds 90 points, with a brilliant historical record of 97 points.

Many COE champion estates score even lower, and high scores are never achieved casually. Whether it is green bean variety, origin, climate, cultivation method or processing method, all of it reflects 90+'s unique insistence, and out of that grew 90+'s independent production system, Profile Processing.

2. An Exclusive Production System: Profile Processing

If you have read our earlier article on SCAA's definition of specialty coffee, you know that specialty coffee processes are long and complex and depend on the persistence of many people. In reality, the different stages do not always connect smoothly and were once even fragmented. Green bean merchants, for example, cared only about selecting and buying good green coffee, not about how farmers grew it and often not about processing technique. As long as the final cupping was good, they bought it. That is quite reasonable. If you were a wholesale watermelon merchant, would you care how the farmers grow watermelons? That would be overreach.

That logic works for bulk commodities delivered straight to a market economy, where good products can always be found. But as coffee moved toward a high-priced specialty market, 90+ led the way in building its own green bean production system, Profile Processing.

Put simply, Profile Processing extends management upstream, covering variety, origin, climate, cultivation method, harvesting and processing, everything, so the company can produce exceptionally high-quality beans on its own terms.

The concept sounds simple, but execution is extremely difficult. Agriculture is a black box with thousands of variables, and it is hard to summarize.

When 90+ was starting out, it selected only the most outstanding cherries from various Ethiopian farmers and began with processing, applying the most refined methods to already good beans. That produced the first famous 90+ beans, Aricha and Beloya. Even these experiments were astonishing, with incredibly rich fruit flavors and a quality that shocked the specialty circle. From there came the selection of promising farmers, feeding ideal flavor feedback back to farmers and processing plants, re-engineering the process, and gradually steering samples toward 90+'s target flavors through scientific management, while still carefully selecting only the lots that best matched the settings before production. How many experiments and failed samples this involved is unknown, but the tiny quantities that reach the market genuinely justify 90+'s scores, and can be called the cream of the specialty crop.

What makes Profile Processing remarkable is that it masters control over flavor expression, so the highest standards can be planned and set, rather than left to the luck-based buying of ordinary green bean merchants. Exceeding quality standards is not luck here, it is the average, and that is the core value 90+ upholds.

As time goes on and 90+ accumulates more experimental data, the flavor potential of these beans may prove limitless.

3. Creating Their Own Coffee Estate: Ninety Plus Gesha Estate

Green bean merchants funding estates is nothing new, but 90+ was unprecedented in taking such a bold step in Panama, buying entire farmland and growing coffee from scratch. What is more, Ninety Plus Gesha Estate (NPGE Estate) grows only the precious Gesha variety, also written Geisha, with no substantive difference between the two spellings.

That decision traces back to 90+'s founder and CEO, Joseph Brodsky.

Starting in 2004, when Panama La Esmeralda's Geisha green beans won the Panama cupping competition and then swept various competitions, coffee lovers worldwide went crazy for Geisha, and Joseph Brodsky was one of those bitten by it. He went to Ethiopia searching for ancient excellent varieties better than Geisha, a kind of Holy Grail. His luck was not great and he did not find them, but he did discover Aricha and Beloya, which sent a shockwave through the specialty coffee world. Since he could not find a better variety, he decided to make the current best variety as good as it could possibly be. So in 2009, 90+ established NPGE Estate in Panama, planting only the most powerful Geisha coffee. Within NPGE Estate they set up the Ninety Plus Sensory Room (NP Sensory Laboratory) and a Solar Kiln laboratory, where SK processing is carried out, along with new research into processing styles different from the norm, such as Red processing and Ruby processing.

NPGE is 90+'s largest experimental farm, and using the best variety for experiments is thoroughly satisfying, executing the Profile Processing system to the fullest. After several years of cultivation, the experimental team launched five Geisha coffees from NPGE: Lycello, Perci, Juliette, Silvia and Lotus. Perci also has upgraded versions, Perci Red (Red processing) and Perci Ruby (Ruby processing), creating different expressions of Perci's sweetness, while Silvia and Lotus are new products of the latest SK processing method.

From this it is clear that by creating NPGE, controlling the formidable Geisha variety and experimenting freely on its own estate, 90+ keeps strengthening its competitive edge, and its ambition and boldness are remarkable.

4. Flavor Symbols Instead of Processing Methods

90+ innovates so much compared with ordinary green bean merchants that its flavor descriptions have to differ too.

This gives many newcomers to 90+ quite a headache, as they face a string of symbols that look like an unfamiliar script.

The reason for unique flavor symbols is to help consumers better understand the flavor possibilities and the strict selection behind 90+'s various top-tier beans. It is also a responsible production record, unconventional though it is, and once understood it reveals the work and value behind this world of uncompromising specialty coffee.

First come the flavor symbols marked after each bean:

W2 = Washed processing flavor

N2 = Natural processing flavor

H2 = Honey processing flavor

One point deserves special emphasis: in general, W stands for washed processing, N for natural and H for honey, but at 90+ these letters do not indicate processing methods. They describe flavor.

W2 means beans close to a washed flavor, though they are not necessarily washed processed. The 2 may simply help consumers tell them apart, with no special meaning. In fact 90+ does not clearly mark each bean's processing method, possibly because it is a trade secret. Mixed processing is popular now, semi-natural and semi-washed, washed combined with drying racks, several types of honey processing, so simply saying washed or natural may not accurately reflect a bean's actual production record, and 90+ does not mark it. Only SK processing (Solar Kiln) is specially marked, because SK is 90+'s original new processing method with a relatively clear target. A flavor description is added simply to tell consumers the bean's basic profile. The exciting flavors that appear after roasting are left to roasters and cafes to communicate.

5. A Proprietary LEVEL Grading System

Bean grading is expressed differently under each country's rules, such as the commonly heard Kenya AA, AB, SHB, 18 mesh or G2, all different grading methods.

The purpose of grading is to separate premium products from secondary ones, but many grading criteria are not necessarily correlated with flavor, so a high grade does not guarantee a good taste, though it is at least reference data. Beginners should weigh grade without being superstitious about it.

Besides its flavor symbols, 90+ has its own grading for each bean, entirely different from other countries', divided into seven levels:

L4, L7, L12, L21, L39, L95, L195

L means Level, and the classification is based on production quantity, processing refinement, difficulty and selection strictness.

Higher numbers mean smaller production, more refined processing, greater complexity and difficulty, and stricter selection, but 90+ has not published detailed grading content, so like the flavor symbols it is reference data. Even so, we should understand the general meaning, which can be split into four bands:

L4 band: this grade no longer appears in 90+ products. In the past it referred to mixed harvest batches. When single-origin flavor was not rich enough or production was too small, several excellent origins were mixed and processed together, somewhat like the earlier Aricha and Beloya. As 90+'s experimental control matured over the years, this grade fell out of use.

L7, L12 band: most Ethiopian beans sit here, with excellent flavor, impeccable in both aroma and texture. This grade of 90+ can be called entry-level but with quite good value for money.

For example: Tchembe and Kemgin are L7, while Nekisse and Hachira are L12.

L21, L39 band: this is almost exclusively the domain of Geisha coffee from NPGE Estate. For 90+, the Geisha variety itself represents high grade, so its lowest grade is L21. Geisha is also harder to care for, and processing strictness is higher than for Ethiopian beans. Specially processed Ethiopian beans can also be upgraded into this band, becoming comparable to Geisha.

For example: Lycello is L21, Juliette and Perci are L39, all three Geisha from NPGE Estate, while Nekisse Red (Red processed Ethiopian Nekisse) is upgraded to L39.

L95, L195 band: these two grades require 90+'s special processing methods, such as Red (Red processing), Ruby (Ruby processing) and SK (Solkiln processing), essentially an endorsement of 90+'s exclusive techniques. But reaching the highest L195 still requires Geisha.

For example: Lotus (SK processing), Silvia (SK processing), Semeon Abay (from the Master Series) and Nekisse Ruby (Ruby processed Ethiopian beans) are all L95, while Perci Ruby is currently the only L195, combining Ruby processing with the Geisha variety.

6. Green Bean Concepts Continuously Innovated

Green bean production concepts are historical products extended from different regional environments. This does not lock onto processing methods alone: bean variety, cultivation method, storage method and more can all be explored. In short, these are the core concepts affecting how a bean's flavor forms.

Take processing: African regions mainly used natural processing in the early days, because sunlight was plentiful and water scarce, so natural processing arose on its own.

Take quality: FrontStreet Coffee's Golden Mandheling is characterized by three rounds of manual defect selection and large, uniform bean size.

Take variety: FrontStreet Coffee's Geisha shows intense floral aroma, an ultra-fine texture and clear recognizability.

The green bean concepts above are not single factors; they are highlighted and even named for their main influencing reason. For any good bean to have uniqueness, meticulous care is the basic condition, but consumers still need more reasons why the flavor is special.

While handling green beans, 90+ has added many novel concepts, letting the beans absorb stronger variable influences and forming a uniqueness of their own that ordinary green bean merchants find hard to touch.

FrontStreet Coffee obtained [FrontStreet Coffee Candlelight] from 90+. We chose a medium-light roast to preserve the bean's floral and fruit aromas, and brew with 89°C water. The rich, complex floral aroma is unforgettable, with clear nectarine and tropical fruit flavors that surprise on the first sip and a clean, bright mouthfeel.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Recommendations for FrontStreet 90+ Candlelight:

V60/90°C/1:15/Time: two minutes

Flavor: Floral, nectarine, tropical fruits

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Not every cup needs the intensity of a 90+ Gesha. When you want the comfort of nut and chocolate flavors, with a creamy, full sweetness like candied walnuts, gentle acidity and a satin-smooth body, FrontStreet Coffee's nut-and-chocolate lineup is the place to look. Colombia, Indonesia, Brazil and Papua New Guinea are the origins that deliver this profile most reliably.

A strong place to start is the FrontStreet Specialty Blend, an espresso built mainly on Brazil with Colombia in support. Beyond complex nut aromas like almond and walnut, it brings a pleasant bittersweet note in a latte and a sweet milk-chocolate texture that slips down easily. It carries Colombia's nut, chocolate and caramel notes with moderate acidity, and the cup is balanced and expressive, ideal for anyone who wants a strong coffee.

If you want that creamy chocolate flavor from a single origin, the FrontStreet Queen Estate is the pick. It comes from a smaller region and uses more refined processing, from the Yellow Bourbon variety with its distinctive bright-yellow fruit. After roasting it shows Brazil's nut, cream, roasted peanut and caramel-cookie flavors, with low acidity, a balanced body and a particularly sweet, lingering finish. It works in a pour-over, French press or Clever Dripper, and shines just as well in a moka pot or home espresso machine. For a stronger, deeper cup, the entry-level FrontStreet Indonesia Lintong Mandheling comes from Sumatra's Lintong region at Indonesia's top G1 grade. Wet-hulled and dark roasted, it brings out brown sugar, spice, herbal, nut and dark chocolate aromas, full-bodied, rich and low in acidity, suited to pour-over, moka pot and Clever Dripper, and useful as a practice bean for beginners.

For those who love milk chocolate, the value-focused FrontStreet Black Cocoa Base Blend combines Brazil's nut aroma and smooth body with the ripe plum-like sweetness and gentle character of Yunnan Small Bean. Pulled as espresso it has a fine crema and moderate intensity, and it performs in an Americano, a latte or a flavored signature drink, with a caramel finish. And the FrontStreet Papua New Guinea Paradise Bird, nicknamed "Little Blue Mountain," shares the creamy cocoa character of FrontStreet Jamaica Blue Mountain, but with a medium roast that keeps a bright grapefruit acidity, layering toasted bread and nut sweetness against soft citrus, with a spice-tinged finish and a smooth, balanced body.